Betrayal
by T.S. Blue
Summary: Bo grinned like all the world was a fresh-from-the-oven brownie; Luke's nose wrinkled as if he was smelling manure. In other words, just a typical week in Hazzard. Until one Duke cousin betrays another... Rated T for language and roughness. Complete.
1. The Rest was Disaster

_Author's note: Just like my last longer story I feel compelled to warn you that some folks may not care for this one. I have no interest in disturbing anyone else's vision of the Dukes, so if you're not enjoying the story, feel free to opt out. _

_Another warning: proper grammar usage in fiction seems to be a thing of the past for me. (Also, the language is sometimes a bit rough, but never worse than PG-13.)_

_I have to thank Card for the sort of "idea pool" that we have created, and Gia for putting up with and encouraging me through my "I need a plot" crisis._

_As always, I own nothing but the words (and the occasional original character), earn nothing for what I post here, and appreciate the feedback._

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Chapter 1 – The Rest was Disaster

Luke, at least, had the good sense and grace to be born at nine-thirty in the morning. Oh, he'd heard about having pained his Mama all night, but when it came down to it, all the work involved in getting him birthed had taken place after morning chores and before the heat of the day. Was done with his dramatics, cleaned up and in his mother's arms in time for a mid-morning nap, to hear Jesse tell it.

And Jesse should know, having midwived him. Good boy, didn't put up much of a fight, came quiet, eyes already open and studying the world. He'd heard it a million times, almost always followed by "who would have guessed what a handful he'd turn into." Which just went to prove that they'd all, from the moment he'd shown up in the world, expected more of him than he could ever be.

Bo came along somewhere around zero-dark-thirty. Oh, Jesse didn't call it that, it was the latent Marine in Luke that supplied those words. Jesse said something closer to "even the good Lord was sleeping when Bo finally decided to stop poking around in his Mama's belly and get on with living." Seemed like Bo done decided to get born and then changed his mind a couple of times in those last days, too. He was trouble from the beginning so it was no surprise how he turned out, and everybody loved him for it anyway.

Didn't matter, leastwise not much. They were both lucky to have a home and to be loved at all. And the type of home they had, the brand of love they were given, let them have more fun than most of the folks they'd grown up with. Moonshiners kept their own hours, wrote their own rules, laughed hard and often.

Bo was laughing now, driving like a fool, blonde hair in his eyes as he looked at Luke instead of the road.

"Pay attention, Bo," a casual reminder because the fact was, Bo didn't need to keep an eye on the road, but it was just tempting fate, letting him get too comfortable about that. And saying it didn't change a thing, except maybe the angle of Bo's eyes. He was still grinning like all the world was a fresh-from-the-oven brownie and he had an endless supply of whipped cream for the top. And the only reason for that incredible glee was having hit that last dip in the road just perfectly for a fun little hop.

Luke really would have thought that something would have put an end to that smile long ago. The loss of their parents, or if Bo was too young to have been aware of that at the time, maybe Aunt Lavinia's death. The poverty that they'd skirted the edge of all their lives, maybe, or the threat of prison looming over them when they'd gotten caught on that moonshine run. If nothing else, the monotony of their current lives should have done it – relentless pursuit by the inept law of Hazzard and the sort of weekly triumph of the Duke boys over the Dipsticks. But there Bo was, grinning like he always had and maybe he always would, and maybe, just maybe, that was what made Luke's life tolerable.

* * *

Luke was _not_ that innocent. There was enough evidence of that fact sitting in plain sight throughout the county, from the scar in the oak tree at the intersection of Ridge and Pond Roads (left behind after Luke nicked it with the old farm truck, racing Cooter before he was even legal on the roads) to the way that Rosco's trigger finger twitched at the mere sight of him.

Girls, though, the ones that didn't have any sense anyway, always fell for Luke's wide-eyed act, that almost-shy way he could look, like he was half embarrassed by their attentions. Whatever he actually felt by way of discomfort had to be very short-lived, because he always managed to get over it in time to take them someplace private and questionably romantic.

Luke wasn't that innocent and anyone who had grown up with him knew it. Rosco didn't fall for it anymore (except when he did) and even Enos was a bit suspicious after twenty-odd years of seeing Luke in action. Jesse threatened to tan his hide for it (and for some reason, this threat still worked) and Daisy played along when it served a purpose, but always let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she was fully aware of what he was up to.

But none of them, no one but Bo, knew the half of it (well, maybe Jesse did, he always knew more than they thought he should). There wasn't anyone else that was almost always there when Luke started things, put on his _who-me?_ face and then found one way or another to finish it. No one else got nearly the dirty looks that Bo did for starting things, but at least being honest about it. Jumping the gun, Luke called it, but Bo knew better. It was just admitting, outright, something's wrong and it's up to us to fix it. Luke, he always pretended to be patient, to wait for things to fix themselves. But as soon as he had the excuse, Luke appointed himself chairman of the Fix-it Committee and set directly to work. Sometimes he was in such a rush that he didn't even bother to form the rest of the committee. Just "Let's go, Bo" and the rest was disaster.

And then there was today. Luke's nose wrinkled like he smelled manure, chin coming up and muscles tensed, and all this just on entering the Boar's Nest. Bo couldn't get a whiff of whatever it was that Luke did, but the place was reasonably crowded, and he could see the usual mix of townsfolk and truckers. The pulse of the place felt normal: could explode into a brawl or just settle into a normal yaw and sway without ever quite tipping over.

Except for Luke, whose head rocked back so he could watch the scene through slits of blue, as if the filter of his eyelashes would reveal to him the trouble he sought (and if there was no trouble, Bo knew well enough that Luke could start some all on his own). Already tired of his cousin's hyper-alert mood, Bo headed to the bar to get them some drinks. A watery beer or two and Luke would settle down. Probably. Besides, there were a couple of relatively cute girls by the bar, girls Bo had never met. They were the most promising kind, the ones who noticed for the first time how tall he was, what pretty hair he had, and didn't know any better about succumbing to his sweetest smile. If Luke wouldn't keep him company, surely one of the girls would.

"Howdy," he greeted the girls, using his left hand to signal Daisy for two beers, even as he shook hands with his right, turning on the charm. "Name's Bo Duke, what's yours?" Another thing that would annoy Luke, if his cousin hadn't already drifted across the back end of the place with that same slightly tipped head, complete with scowling face. Luke found a corner seat, the kind he liked best, where he could scan the crowd for whatever his pessimistic mind figured was already there. Daisy was back already, sticking a beer into each of Bo's hands, and why in heck had he ordered two? Now he had to leave the girls (full of promise as they were, named Cherry and Louise) to go back to his surly cousin, at least long enough to drop off a beer and make some token effort at settling Luke down. Grabbed the drinks and nodded to the girls, an assurance that he'd be right back in the movement of his head, acceptance of that fact in a lip-biting smile from Cherry. Luke could have Louise, if he could get over his suspicious ways.

But heading back to his cousin, snaking his way through tables in a much clumsier way than Daisy usually did, he just about bumped into whatever it was that Luke had smelled. Men, unfamiliar, way too sober for the place and moving toward the bar, past Bo, not gently, but with no real harm intended either. Just single-minded in whatever they were doing and exactly the type Luke would watch. Nine times out of ten, there was no good reason for it, but that tenth time, Luke came in handy. Still, it seemed like the bar would settle back down in the wake of their passing.

"Luke," he said, handing him the beer that had sloshed over the side a bit when he crossed from the bar, keeping the intact one for himself. Luke frowned about it, but didn't bother to argue. "Come with me back to the bar. There's a couple of ladies…"

"Bo," and there was some kind of a warning in that tone. "Sit down."

"Luke." There were more important things than his cousin's mood. Like Cherry and Louise. "Come on…" There was more to that sentence, something about girls and the bar, but by then all hell had broken loose.

Blue blur to his left before he could even spin around toward the bar and the trouble. Luke was gone, but there was nothing to be worried about. Except that Bo might miss out on the fun unless he got moving. And by the time he turned back to look at the bar there were bodies flying everywhere. Luke still had both feet on the ground though, and there was no sign of Hazzard's excuse for law enforcement. That was all the invitation Bo needed to jump into the middle of this thing.

A tangle of bodies, in front of him and at his feet, and he took more hits that he dished out, probably. Didn't hurt worth mentioning. If you'd ever been hit by Luke Duke (and Bo only really had a couple of times) you knew what it meant to take a punch. The rest of the riff-raff in the Boar's Nest couldn't come close.

And this was definitely the riff-raff. Here came one now, all full of bravado and adrenalin and beer, and it didn't take more than a half-hearted swing of Bo's fist to send that one flying. Used to be he and Luke had to work to clear a room, but the next fool that came tripping over barstools to get at him was as hapless as the one before, in fact landed pretty much on top of the last guy Bo had hit. Looked up to see who was next, and caught Luke's eyes. He'd expected his cousin to have a one-sided grin about the whole thing, what with him having been right about trouble brewing and the chance to beat the tar out of a few fools dumb enough to start trouble in the Boar's Nest when the Duke boys were there. But Luke's eyes were big and his mouth was in that O shape, like he'd just finished shouting Bo's name, and then there was nothing at all.

* * *

A stool, damn it, a stool. They got broken all the time, and people did wield them as weapons, but not that way. Over someone's back sure, and legs first so they'd shatter and scare everyone, but never over someone's head, never the hard seat of one into the back of someone's skull like that. People in Hazzard weren't that mean.

Bo hadn't even put a hand out to catch himself on the way down. He had to be out. And the stool-wielding fool wasn't done yet, was between Luke and his cousin, and still waving the damn thing in the air.

Thought stopped; reflex took over. Too bad for the big (he really was big, and he was one of the guys Luke had watched from the start, too big; heavy, pudgy face under that beard somehow looking like someone's sweet baby boy) ape with the stool.

Luke knew how to fight and he knew how to bring an end to a fight, and he didn't need a makeshift weapon to do it, either. The stool was wrenched out of the goon, the jerk who had hit his cousin, the idiot's hands and was across the open space of the Boar's Nest in record time, funny, he didn't remember throwing it. All the same, there it went, and then there was the face of the guy in front of him. Dumb surprise on that face, and then he was gone, Luke must have hit him, too. Yeah, come to think of it, his knuckles did hurt a bit, but he only noticed that because he needed to use that had, his right, to check for Bo's pulse. Instinct, stupid one at that, since Bo was visibly breathing. He just wasn't awake and that was bad. Wasn't awake and there was blood, and there was –

"Bo! Baby, are you all right?" Daisy. There was Daisy.

"Get Rosco." That was pointless. "Get an ambulance!"

And she was gone, because that was how things broke up, the way he'd always insisted it had to work. Daisy went for help and Luke took care of Bo. Bo, who was pale, clammy, bleeding, and out cold.


	2. Not a Better Day

**Chapter 2 – Not a Better Day**

Luke was – was Luke in trouble? There'd been that look on his face in the middle of the brawl, surprise and just maybe fear, and then there was nothing but the headache Bo didn't remember having, but it was there behind his eyes anyway. Sound like a whoosh and he wanted to sit up, but something was holding him back, so he just opened his eyes.

Luke.

"Be still, Bo." Luke was what was keeping him from sitting up, hand on Bo's chest, pushing him back down onto the hard and sticky floor of the Boar's Nest. Smelled of stale beer and felt like a sheet of ice under him and all he wanted was up, to see what was around him, more than just Luke. Shoot, he saw Luke every day, never got away from Luke long enough to forget what he looked like (except those three years when – but no, he didn't need to be thinking on that right now), but there was some commotion, something going on behind Luke, some reason his cousin didn't want him sitting up right now.

"Luke," that hurt, the sound of his voice echoing within his own head. "I'm fine." Winced a bit, just to prove how fine he was. Pushed up against Luke's hand again.

"Bo." And that wasn't a great sound, Luke wasn't entirely under control. Oh, he was doing a fine impression of a man who was under control, but he was all angles, his shoulders tight, voice gravelly, eyebrows down, hair sweaty with clear parts in it, like he'd run his fingers through it more than enough times in the last—

Well, that was a problem, wasn't it? Time had passed and Bo didn't know how much.

Enough, apparently, that an ambulance had been called, because here came a medic. And there went Luke, shifting his weight again in anticipation, because he knew how Bo felt about these things and that bossy big cousin of his was going to make him stay there.

Bo pushed up against his hand anyway, trying to get an elbow under himself. "Luke, I said I'm fine." Dizzy, but fine.

More muscle behind the way Luke kept him down this time, right hand on his chest, left going behind his neck and his face was taking up almost all of Bo's vision now.

"You ain't fine, Bo." But the gentleness of Luke's voice didn't make sense against the tightness of his jaw. Luke wanted to hit someone, not stay calm for his kid cousin. "You've been out…" and when Bo struggled against him one more time, "You're bleeding."

So much for dizzy. Now the world was whirling and the only real thing was Luke's hand at the back of his neck, half supporting, half calming as Bo gave up the fight. Bleeding was not Bo's favorite activity; he rated it right up there with hearing his full given name. And since they were apparently headed for Tri-County, he'd probably get to hear that soon, too. When he could hear anything but the whooshing in his ears, feel anything but the vertigo—

* * *

Bo could be a near impossible patient. Being still wasn't exactly in his nature to begin with. He'd rather fight things than submit to them, even if it was just Doc Petticord and his stethoscope. At least he was out again, and at least this time it was not injury or even distress that put him there, just pain medication.

Nothing seriously wrong with him, either, just enough to lay him out like this, just enough to keep Luke at his side. A concussion, sure, but Bo could have hopped back up after that, would have stumbled around some, but Luke could have brought him home and put him in his own bed. The cut to the back of his head was what stopped Luke from handling it himself. Turned out it wasn't all that large; it was a head wound and true to what Luke'd learned in the service, it bled heavily. But in the end, when they shaved away that patch of Bo's hair (and when he realized it, Bo would likely kill him for having allowed that to happen) it had only required a few stitches to patch him up. Bo would be fine and Luke wasn't going anywhere until he could see that for himself.

If he'd known it wasn't as bad as it had looked, he would've taken Bo straight to Doc Petticord, but now they were stuck here, in Tri-County, at least until Bo woke up and the doctors shined more lights in his eyes. They didn't like Bo's flimsy consciousness, wouldn't listen to Luke about how it had more to do with blood than a swollen brain (and on a better day he might have said his cousin might just benefit from having a larger brain, but this was not a better day), and now they'd given him a pain killer, so it'd be hours before he was awake again. The boys might, just barely, get home tonight.

One thing he'd made clear was that he wasn't leaving without Bo. And the Dukes had spent enough time in this hospital that there wasn't even a fight about it. It was just a fact, like germs causing infection – or whatever it was that doctors and nurses believed – that where you got one Duke boy, you got both.

They'd made Luke step out when they were first examining Bo, they always did. So he'd done his familial duty, calling Jesse, taking the heat from that snappish anxiety on Jesse's part (old man never did like it when Bo got hurt), kept his uncle calm out of sheer habit, and gone back to Bo.

Within the hour Bo was patched up, doped up and resting in a room. By then Jesse had come, complete with unspoken lectures about how Luke should have done a better job of looking after his cousin. Eyeballed Luke, patted his arm in apology for the tirade that hadn't ever quite happened, and went to Bo's side, leaving Luke to fiddle with the cord to the blinds, maybe ten squares of that ugly linoleum floor away. Just far enough not to hear whatever Jesse said to Bo, at least not over the thoughts in his own head, the nagging itch to go back to the Boar's Nest and let those two idiots that had started this thing know why, exactly, you never messed with Hazzard, and why you never, ever hurt Bo Duke. Picked at the dusty cord in his hands instead, and really expected that a hospital would be cleaner than this.

"I'm all right, Uncle Jesse," tired words, but it meant his uncle had managed to rouse Bo.

"Oh, I know you will be, Bo," and Luke didn't need to see Jesse's face to know he was winking. "Once you get some rest here. So you just go on back to sleep."

Sleep, Bo never had trouble sleeping. And Luke supposed he ought to be grateful that Bo slept as well as he did, considering. It was less time that he had to look after his kid cousin, who always jumped in with both feet without ever bothering to look to see whether there was solid ground beneath him or not. Still, Bo had been sleeping ever since Jesse told him to, and that was hours ago. Jesse had long since gone back to see to the livestock and handle afternoon chores that he and Bo should have been doing.

There were only so many distractions in a hospital room, and Luke was down to playing with the plastic pitcher. Spinning it on the table kept him from throwing it at the wall.

* * *

"Where's Daisy?" Luke thought _that_ was a stupid question, Bo could tell by the way his cousin pressed his lips together. Maybe it was, but it was the first thing that Bo thought of around the headache he'd woken up with. Jesse had been here earlier, he had some vague memory of that. And there was no doubt in his mind that Luke had never left the hospital since they'd gotten here.

"Work," Luke answered, rolling his eyes up and leftward as if the offending question had come from there. "How do you feel?" This was clearly a superior question, as marked by Luke's eyes coming back – almost – to meet Bo's. Luke wouldn't quite look him in the eye. Odd.

"I ain't exactly dyin' to go a few more rounds in the Boar's Nest, but I'll be all right. How about you?" Must be some reason Luke wasn't already teasing him about how his head was too hard for some out-of-towner to do any real damage to, anyway.

Apparently that was an even stupider question than the one about Daisy, the way Luke's eyes rolled that time. "I'm _fine_, Bo," and Luke left out the words _you idiot_, but they were there in his tone all the same. "Come on," he said, reaching over Bo, elbow nearly smacking Bo's forehead. "Let's get us a doctor in here so's we can get you out." And Bo was all for that, so he moved his head out of the way enough for Luke to get to the call button. "Easy, Bo." As if it hadn't been Luke's elbow almost clobbering him that had made him move.

So he grabbed onto Luke's arm and held it, loosely, for a moment. Waited until his cousin's brilliant blue eyes finally made their way to meeting his. "I got a headache, Luke." Wrong sequence, look at that worry in his cousin's eyes. "But I'm gonna be fine. Ain't I?" Because he suddenly realized that he had no idea whether he was really all right or not. Maybe there was reason that Luke didn't want to look at him…

"Bo, you ain't seriously hurt, now. Don't be makin' a big deal out of it or nothin'."

Look who was talking. "Okay, then. You neither, Luke." Because for all his know-it-all attitude, Luke knew nothing, really. Luke's arm came out of his grip, just like that, and suddenly his cousin was pacing away from him.

"I ain't—" And there, finally, was the nurse on duty, come to check Bo's pulse or his blood pressure or whatever she needed to do to assure herself that he actually was awake and maybe she should just go ahead and get a doctor here. This conversation was over.

* * *

Bo was sulking over there in the passenger seat. As if Luke would have let him drive with a concussion. Hand going back to the gauze on the back of his head again, and maybe the pout was more about the shaved patch back there. Luke grabbed his hand away from feeling it again. Life with Bo Duke was always about keeping one hand on the wheel, and using the other to keep Bo from doing something dumb.

"Luke."

"It'll grow back, Bo." His cousin was way too used to being pretty.

"That ain't what I was going to say." And the pout, if possible, got poutier.

"What, then?" He was being patient, like he'd always been taught to be, staying calm and remembering that Bo was younger than him (used to be he had to remember that Bo was smaller, too, but that had changed quite a few years back).

"Never mind," Bo huffed. Luke let go of Bo's arm, counted ten, and continued his exceedingly safe and relatively slow drive back to the farm. Bo probably had a nasty headache and he'd spent the better part of a day in a hospital. He had good reason to be surly. Luke had his own reasons not to really want to talk anyway, so he concentrated on the yellow lines on the road guiding them home.

Long minutes of no sound except breathing later they were in their own driveway. The yard was dark but the porch light was on, and undoubtedly Jesse was inside, waiting for them. They'd all finally learned not to wait on Daisy to get home from work or they'd never be able to get up for morning chores, but with Bo having been hurt, their uncle would stay up for his boys to come home or the phone call telling him they weren't, whichever way it worked out.

By the time he got around to the passenger side of the car, Bo was pulling himself out. Too damn tall to be getting in and out of a car that way; it always looked like he was going to hit his head and tonight that didn't seem like a great idea. Still he'd gotten his head and shoulders out by the time Luke could get his hands on him, and so he just had to content himself with an arm around his younger cousin's waist while Bo swung his legs around to the ground.

"Watch yourself," mumbled so quietly it might not even have made it to Bo's ears. His cousin didn't shake him off, must be tired. It had been a long day, even if Bo had spent a good portion of it unconscious.

"Luke." Might have been a rebuke, couldn't tell, but he let go of his cousin all the same. After all, Bo was steady enough on his feet. Kept his cousin in front of him going up the stairs to the porch anyway – didn't need him losing his balance and falling backwards.

"Boys." If Uncle Jesse wasn't dozing in his chair, it couldn't be good. But there he was at the kitchen table and wide awake, waiting to make sure Bo wasn't on death's doorstep or anything. After that, undoubtedly, he'd take Luke aside and remind him about starting fights and letting Bo get hurt, because that was the way it worked. For as long as he could remember, Bo started things, got himself hurt, and Luke got the lecture, sometimes the whipping. It was all about how Luke could have prevented it, as if he could actually keep Bo from springing into things. But this time… he could have prevented it, yeah. "I was just startin' to think you might not make it home."

"Sorry, Uncle Jesse." And there Bo went, apologizing like it was his fault, and accepting a hug from their uncle. Looked peaceful like that, forgiven, and he hadn't even done anything wrong. How did Bo always seem to manage that, effortlessly making people love him? Luke just didn't have that kind of draw on anyone.

Their uncle pulled back from the hug to assess the baby of the family. Seemed to find Bo acceptable enough.

"Why don't you head off to bed, Bo? You look like you been trampled by a mule." Or maybe not so acceptable after all. And then— "Luke." That wasn't what he wanted to hear next. "Your dinner is in the refrigerator. I expect you to eat it all." As if he were a small child. And then there was the unspoken _I want you separate from Bo for a bit_, of course.

Bo dragged his feet out of the room (and on another day that might have been annoying, but tonight Luke figured Bo had a reason to walk flat-footed) with Jesse following behind. That made sense, the old man would see Bo off to bed before coming and lighting into Luke. Might as well get in his last meal. Cold chicken, it looked like, because he wasn't going to take the time to heat it up. Besides, fried chicken always tasted better to him when it was cold anyway.

He took his time with it, figuring the lecture was his real reason for having been sat here. And somewhere in his second drumstick (not Daisy's best, too much… something. Pepper, maybe?) his uncle's heavy old feet rattled the floor boards and there he was.

"Luke." He had a mouthful of cold chicken, so he nodded the acknowledgement that he'd heard. Should have known that wouldn't be enough. Jesse stood there, just as huge and intimidating as he'd always been, starting when Luke had been one heck of a lot shorter. So he swallowed and met the old man's eyes.

Somewhere after three years of compulsory 'yes, sir' in the military, Luke got tired of the words, stopped saying them, and didn't figure Jesse would call him on it. Mostly he didn't, but every now and then—

"Yes, sir?"

"I don't want you up all night watching over Bo. He's gonna be fine. If there's one thing that boy's got, it's a hard head. You both do." It was supposed to make him laugh or at least smile, but it wasn't funny now and it never had been. Bo could have been— "He ain't really hurt. You just go on in there and sleep as sound as he does." Well, he'd have to take Bo's pain medication to sleep like that. But Jesse didn't want to hear him say that, so he nodded and went back to the chicken, which didn't look a lot better than it tasted.

No movement on Jesse's part, so Luke looked up again; maybe his uncle needed another 'yes, sir' or something. Maybe not, the old man was shifting now, settling into the chair across from him.

"Want some chicken?" It was a hope, at least, that his uncle would eat instead of talking.

"No, I don't. Luke," and this was the problem. Everyone in this house just took too long to get around to whatever it was they had to say, called each other by name then paused and if he was going to get the lecture, and it should just come already.

"I started it, Uncle Jesse." Confessions usually sped things along.

A deliberate nod was not what he wanted from his uncle either, but there Jesse was, doing it anyway.

"Bo wanted me to go with him to the bar and hang out with some girls, but there were a couple of guys walking around the place like they were looking for a fight."

"And you figured to give them one?" Oh, Jesse was good at this. Pretending there were no repercussions to telling this story, asking like he was really curious instead of trying to get Luke to lay out for him exactly how big a fool he'd been.

"No, sir. I just didn't like the way they were acting was all. I watched them push their way around the place, they bumped past Bo pretty hard, but he didn't take no offense, so…" A shrug was really the only way to end that sentence.

Oh, his uncle was good. Sitting there all patience and curiosity and no, he wasn't about to light into Luke at all. "But then one of 'em pushed a table into Sunshine, and you know he's dang near eighty…"

"Luke." That was a warning. _Tone it down, boy. Don't get so riled. And respect your elders._

_Yes, sir._ "Anyways," breathe in, breathe out. "They was goin' after them tables where you and your friends play checkers. You know, those guys that…" are too old to fight. "Those guys that ain't used to fighting and could get hurt. So I…" saw red Jesse, I know I'm supposed to count ten, I know I ain't supposed to set a bad example for Bo and I know I ain't supposed to let him get hurt— "I hit one of them. Reckoned I'd make them pick on someone their own size or whatever. I wasn't thinkin' about Bo."

"If you're their own size, Bo's their own size."

"So he got in the middle, too, an' before I knew it, it was a full out brawl an' you couldn't tell who was who no more. Somehow one of 'em got behind Bo and he had a stool, and…" Wait, what was that about Bo being their own size?

"Is there more?" Dang, Jesse was good, could throw you off balance right in the middle of your own confession.

"Nothin' you don't already know. Bo got hurt and we went to the hospital. Like you said, he's got a hard head." _Just not as hard as mine._ And just look at that, the chicken was still sitting there half eaten in front of him, so he stared at it for a minute before looking back up at Jesse.

"All right," Jesse said and pushed his heavy body up from the table. "Good night, then."

"All right?" And – _good night_? What exactly… "Jesse?"

"What, you had more to tell me?"

"No, but I'm—" still waiting for the lecture.

"I don't reckon there's much of anything I can tell you that you don't already know. Or that you'll listen to anyways. So good night."

And this was pushing his luck, but, "Anything I'll listen to?"

Talking to Luke was obviously incredibly exhausting, considering the way Jesse sighed and sat, eyes rolling all the way.

"If I told you to let it go, would you?" No more rolling, Jesse's eyes were intense on Luke's, now.

"Let what go, Uncle Jesse?"

"Do you know who they were, Luke, the guys that started the fight?"

His teeth clenched at that. He'd been working so hard at concentrating on taking care of Bo... "No." His jaw was starting to hurt, but he didn't seem to be able to loosen the muscles there.

"Do you know where to find them?"

"No." A swallow didn't do anything to ease the tightness of his jaw, but it did seem to hurt his throat.

"And they ain't from around here." That one didn't require a response, at least. Good thing, too, because there were words building up in him, but not the kind he could say at his uncle's dinner table.

"Then, Luke, let it go. He's going to be all right. They's likely gone and never coming back. You ain't got to go looking for them or anyone who might look like them or the next guys that come through town or any of those things you want to do. You ain't going to make nothing better by going out and stirring up more trouble." And his uncle's case was rested. Didn't stay the rage he'd awakened in Luke one bit, but as long as Jesse'd had his say…

What was the use. Luke nodded and went back to looking at his chicken. Jesse was right, there wasn't anything he could do about what had happened today.

Jesse stood and patted him on the shoulder before leaving him alone in the kitchen. With a plate of cold chicken that he'd never be able to unhinge the anger in his jaw long enough to actually eat.


	3. A Lonely Morning

_Hay y'all - Thanks for reading. Don't own, don't earn, do appreciate the feedback, thanks!_

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Chapter 3 – A Lonely Morning

Water. That was the thing that woke him up, probably, just how dry and sticky his mouth felt and how badly he needed a drink. It was that time of morning that he hated, before light, before even Luke was up, the loneliest time of any day. He was rarely conscious for it, and if by some accident he did wake up, usually Bo did his best to go right back to sleep. But he was thirsty and more than that, tired of sleeping. Luke would never believe it if he told him so, but that would have to wait anyway, because Luke was actually out cold, sleeping on his side, facing Bo. Normally his cousin slept on his back (and snored like he was drowning quicksand, slurpy sucking sounds), but obviously he was in watchdog mode, waiting for any movement from Bo. Except that watchdog done fell asleep on the job and Bo was ready to let him stay that way.

Luke had felt bad yesterday, it was obvious in how quiet he'd been. But today he was likely wake up already talking, telling Bo how you always had to be alert and that it was stupid to turn your back on an enemy during a fight. As if you could watch in every direction at all times. Of course, Luke probably could, eyes in the back of his head and all that. Back when Bo was too young to know any better Luke had started that one, half-convincing his gullible kid-cousin into believing that he actually did have a second pair of eyes. Maybe it was a desire to know whether those back eyes were as blue as the ones in front that made Bo go looking one night, pushing his hand through dark curls after his cousin had gone to sleep. Luke woke up fighting, smacked him in the face and gave him a fat lip. Jesse wasn't sympathetic with Bo, either, made him apologize for disturbing his cousin's sleep. Luke might have had to apologize for teasing him; Bo couldn't quite remember that part. But there had been lots of smirking, that he knew for sure.

He'd been lying here thinking of water for too long. Pushed against the bed until he was sitting, waited for the spin of the room to settle down to a tolerable speed, stood and managed not to stumble in those few steps between the bed and the door. Luke seemed far enough out not to miss him.

He'd made good his escape and was not nearly as dizzy as he'd expected to be, but the rest of the house did nothing to brighten his pre-dawn gloom. So he shuffled to the bathroom and drank straight from the spigot because there was no one to stop him. Maybe that was the only good thing about being the only one awake – no rules.

And as little as he liked a lonely morning, the idea of going back to bed was worse, so he wound his way to the living room and Jesse's old chair. It was the best piece of furniture they owned and it had been around since their uncle was a boy. Spring in the middle could get you if you didn't know the right way to sit down, and in the thin, cotton pajama pants that were all he was wearing, he had to be double careful.

* * *

Figuring out exactly what his disaster of a cousin was up to now had been a full-time occupation for Luke ever since their aunt had died. Wouldn't have been so hard if Bo had ever had a logical thought in his life (well, that wasn't fair, he'd had one or two). If there was a perfectly rational choice, Bo would be sure not to make it, which made him sort of predictable actually, and probably Luke ought to have been grateful for small mercies.

So, Bo should have been in his bed right there next to Luke but he wasn't and Luke should have anticipated that. The color obviously went deeper than the hair, and Bo had a blonde brain.

Luke hadn't meant to sleep that deeply anyway. Half the time when he wanted to sleep he couldn't, and then he'd go off and stay out cold through his elephant of a cousin getting up to do who knew what. Ought to go back to sleep and just let Bo… maybe he was sick. Concussions could do that to you. Better get up and find the kid. Who was beyond the age of majority and had been for a lot of years now but that didn't matter a bit, not in Bo's behavior. So he'd probably always be a kid and Luke would never get any rest with having to chase after him all the time. So much for bed or anything close to rest; time to go looking for Bo. Pulled on jeans and grabbed himself a shirt on the way out the bedroom door.

And, of course, Bo was not sick, or at least not at the moment. Luke found him asleep in Jesse's old chair, the one that Bo had been rocked to sleep in all those years ago when it had been half their Aunt Lavinia's chair, too. Sometimes Luke could picture her, the braids in her hair bundled together at the back of her head, squirming little blonde boy in her lap, her telling endless stories about the wildlife and the land. Luke didn't necessarily listen to the words, just the drone of her voice, and he'd settle down despite himself, usually on the floor just far enough away to have a clear view of her. And Bo, who would squirm a bit longer and eventually drop off to sleep. Bo's switch was either all the way on or completely off, and Lavinia used to hold the key to which way it was going to go.

So Bo had gotten restless in the night and come out here to find sleep again. Never worked that way for Luke, this chair was where he spent time thinking, but since Bo didn't hardly think to begin with…

Bo was too tall, the back of the chair hit him just above the shoulders and his head flopped back, mouth open and just as noisy asleep as he was awake. He couldn't be comfortable that way. Especially not – Luke put a hand on Bo's cheek, gentle as he could manage, trying not to wake his cousin up, moved his head so the weight of it would be resting more on the side than the back. Caught sight of that gauze back there and felt tension in his jaw like an answering headache to the kind Bo must have.

He was supposed to be letting things go. Went into the kitchen with some intention of making coffee, but the house was too quiet a place to stay in even long enough for coffee to brew, so he kept on going right through the kitchen, grabbed his boots from beside the door and pushed outside into the morning chill. Might as well get at the chores, because Bo couldn't help him with them today anyway.

* * *

"Bo." It was a command, his uncle telling him in no uncertain terms that he needed to wake up now. There had been other attempts that he'd been half aware of, touches here or there and his name said more quietly. But this was serious, his uncle meant it and the fact that he wasn't too old to go over Jesse's knee was in the sound of that voice.

So he opened his eyes just enough to see the slightest light around him. Still plenty early; he couldn't have been asleep long. And he hadn't meant to sleep at all. No more room for thought with Jesse crowding all of his view checking his pupils for whatever it was he went looking for when there was even the threat of a concussion. Bo didn't know much about it; Luke got hit over the head more often than he did.

"Well, now. You're lookin' pretty good there," Jesse pronounced, moving back and patting his cheek.

Felt that grin spread right across his own face. "I always look good, Uncle Jesse."

That got him tsk sound, and Jesse added, "Feelin' better too, I see. Come on, let's go see about breakfast." And the old man was helping him up, awkward as the gesture was, since somewhere around the time Bo had turned sixteen, Jesse had become downright short.

Seemed that the nap had helped because he felt a lot steadier on his feet than he had back in the bedroom. Maybe it was the medication wearing off. He'd never understand why Luke always refused the stuff. The dizziness it caused was worth it in dulled pain.

Thinking of the man, Luke came in from the porch just about the same time Bo and Jesse made it into the kitchen. Bo met Luke's stare long enough for his cousin to see that he could stand on both feet just fine. Seemed to be some kind of a ritual, the thing that came between Luke worrying and Luke yelling at him, was Luke making sure Bo was all right. He didn't like the last part of that process but it was a necessary evil before they could settle back into their normal rhythm again. So he sat himself down in his seat and waited for the lecture. Probably better that Jesse was here anyway; Luke would keep it tame in front of the old man. But Luke just watched him sit and then deliberately turned away and headed to the sink to wash his hands. Seemed like maybe his cousin was going to do that other thing he did, keep his distance, and that was almost worse than getting yelled at There were times when it sort of felt like Luke wasn't even quite a Duke in the same as the rest of them were, what with the way he could separate himself out from the family and go all quiet.

"Where's Daisy?" Luke finally called over his shoulder somewhere in the middle of what sounded like a vigorous scrubbing.

"Sleeping late, I reckon," their uncle answered from somewhere under the counter – must be looking for a pan or something, and apparently he meant to let Daisy sleep.

That made Luke turn back around towards his kin after all. "No she ain't," he answered. And that was just strange because if he knew she wasn't sleeping, he obviously had a pretty good idea of where she was. "Her jeep ain't out there. I figured she must've gone off to do some errands or something."

Jesse came back into view just glaring at Luke. "What do you mean her jeep ain't out there?" Like it was Luke's doing somehow, and Bo had never quite been on the receiving end of this part of Jesse's temper, but maybe he was just smart enough never to give the old man bad news. "If it ain't out there, where is it?"

That was a good question, and maybe Jesse had a point? Maybe Luke had somehow just missed seeing the jeep (as much as it should have been bright white in total contrast to the dingy farmyard). Bo headed for the door, got just about to opening it when Luke grabbed him by the elbow.

"Bo, it ain't out there, and you ain't wearing boots." The second part was true enough so he reached down and grabbed his shoes, leaning on Luke to put them on. Seemed his handy prop didn't want to stay in place though, and he had to grab hold of Luke to keep from falling over, which slowed down his mastery of footwear considerably.

"Hold still," he complained, and Luke did, but it was clear he'd rather be following Jesse, who had moved deceptively quickly out of the kitchen and was knocking on Daisy's bedroom door.

"Daisy? Wake up now…" loud enough to rattle the timbers, and Luke was trying to leave him again.

"Bo, her car ain't out there, and you shouldn't be standing on one foot!" Well, that was logical. Surely the remedy to getting knocked over the head with a stool was to not stand on one foot for at least a week.

"Luke, just stand still for a second…"

"Daisy?" Not so much knocking as banging now.

And somewhere in the middle of all that Bo actually heard the crunch of tires on the old dirt and gravel driveway.


	4. Sweet as a Rose, With as Many Thorns

_Author's note: Ooltewah, Tennessee is a real place. So is Sequatchie County. Thing is, in reality, Ooltewah is not in Sequatchie County. I, um, liked both names and decided to put them together. I cheated._

_Also, Sheriff Kalb is neither real nor based on anyone that is real. And that tidily leads to: I own nothing Duke, and earn nothing for what I choose to do with Dukes._

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Chapter 4 – Sweet as a Rose, With as Many Hidden Thorns

Rosco. Enos? He couldn't tell with Bo's fuzzy blonde head in the way. His cousin had dropped his second boot and was looking out the glass of the kitchen door, forcing Luke to try to see around or over him, and neither was working very well because Bo was just too darn big.

Bo still had a death grip on his arm, too, pulling on him, maybe planning to run. Running might not have been a bad plan if they had any idea what they were running from, but they didn't. Bo, he probably wanted to run from bad news (he always had) but that wouldn't do them any good. Best to know the worst of it right up front; then you could make plans for dealing with it, but Bo didn't always think that way. As if hiding under the bed the way he had all those years ago would somehow make Aunt Lavinia less dead. It didn't work then and whatever was wrong now, running probably wouldn't help.

"Take it easy, Bo." Always the first words out of his mouth and somehow they always worked, took all that energy bouncing around inside of his cousin and held it still for a moment or two, which was usually all Luke needed in order to assess things, make a plan and give Bo a new order.

Switched the grip so he was holding Bo's arm instead of the other way around, half in self-preservation, because Bo was on the ragged edge of leaving bruises in his wrist. The other half was because he knew Bo would manage to contain himself only so long and Luke wanted a fighting chance of keeping him from bolting or, worse, swinging at the bearer of bad news. Because there were no lights or sirens, and Luke could see now that it was Enos, looking nervous as a turkey on Thanksgiving. The deputy wasn't here to chase down the Duke boys. "Jesse," he called, though the old man was probably on his way back already, no more noise coming from Daisy's bedroom door. "Enos is here."

* * *

He didn't quite remember sitting, but Luke was behind his chair, gripping the back. Bo could feel the hard, probably white, knuckles of Luke's hands brushing against his shoulders when he leaned back.

Enos was across from him and Jesse stood at the head of the table, looking every bit as dangerous as he had when facing down the revenuer that had caught his boys all those years ago.

"How did it happen?" their uncle was demanding, but it was obvious enough. Daisy had been trying to protect them, her cousins, who were at the center of most of the trouble in Hazzard. Just this time the trouble had crossed the state line.

Enos swallowed again, and there couldn't have been any moisture left in his mouth at all, with all the swallowing he'd been doing. But like the good sport he'd always been, their nervous friend told the story one more time.

"Well, you see, the guys that started the fight at the Boar's Nest, the one Bo got hurt in, it turns out they was them Robinson brothers that we got them wanted posters on, hanging in the courthouse. And it also turns out they had some girls that was accomplices, working with them." Girls, apparently, whose description matched what Bo could remember of Cherry and Louise. Seemed like a week ago he was thinking there was just enough of them to go around between him and Luke, but the clock said it was just yesterday around noon. "So while they was distracting everyone with that big fight, them girls done took all the money in the cash register. Then when the ambulance came for Bo, and no one was watching them, the Robinson boys and their girls done took off. I was comin' to help Bo – and I'm mighty glad you're okay Bo – when I saw 'em getting into a station wagon. I chased 'em, but they lost me…"

In Hazzard Pond, because that's where everyone lost Enos. Maybe he and Luke shouldn't have done it quite so many times. It was common knowledge now that if a Hazzard Sheriff's car was after you and you took that low road down near the water at high speed, you stood a better than average chance of dunking a deputy in the pond.

Bo didn't need to hear the rest of the story, hadn't wanted to hear it the first time, really, but now that he had, he was ready to crack some skulls up there in Ooltewah. Or maybe he'd start down at the Hazzard County Courthouse. Because it was Boss that started this thing.

"After Cooter fished me out and I got back to the Boar's Nest, you boys was already on the way to the hospital, and most everyone else was gone, too. Mr. Hogg was there though, and the sheriff was, and Mr. Hogg was hollering about the money that was gone out of the cash register. He was saying y'all was behind it…" and why were they sitting here listening to Enos tell this story again, face flushing in exactly the same spot as it had last time? They should be…

"Daisy said she was gonna clear y'all's name. That y'all didn't plan no robbery and she was gonna prove it." Yeah, they knew this. Boss hadn't let her go right then, and she'd finished her shift, spilling beer left and right in frustration or spite. That was their cousin, sweet as a rose with just as many hidden thorns. Even living with her all his life he'd never been able to figure out which things she did on purpose, and which were actually mistakes.

"An' when she left at the end of her shift, she went on up to Ooltewah." Tennessee, that was, in Sequatchie County. The Robinson brothers' last known address. Not that far and yet a whole set of laws away. Like the laws that bound him and Luke here, to Georgia.

Daisy was, quite simply (oh, not at all simply, this was Daisy, the woman of just about every man's dreams), imprisoned. Like Osage County, where the boys had spent a couple of days on a chain gang, Sequatchie County, Tennessee retained older laws, from a wilder time, giving the local law full powers of jurisdiction. Trials took all of a minute and consisted of Sheriff Kalb (whom the Duke boys had never met and didn't need to; his reputation was enough to know they'd be prime targets if they ever wound up in Sequatchie) pronouncing you _not-from-here_ and _therefore-guilty_. And then you disappeared into his prison system. There was a building there in the tiny downtown of Ooltewah, right next to the sheriff's station, and there were grounds, and that was all anyone knew about the Sequatchie prison, because anyone who'd seen the inside never saw the outside again. At least that was how the stories went. The Dukes had never had any reason to find out whether or not they were true.

And Luke was just about physically keeping him from finding out now. The first time through the story Bo had nearly flown out the door when he heard 'Sequatchie.' Luke had caught him by the arm and told him to settle down. He'd almost hit Luke, half on instinct because no one should ever hold him back when he was this mad, and half because Luke was clearly crazy and needed to be smacked to bring him back to reality. Settle down when Daisy was trapped with… who knew what kind of people… men? Did they house men and women together there? Maybe, and they needed to get there now and break her out.

"Let's plan this right," Luke was saying, still crazy as far as Bo could tell. "So no one gets hurt." No one gets hurt? Daisy could already be— "Any more than they already are." Luke's hands had moved off Bo's chair and onto his shoulders now. It was an interesting feeling, Luke trying to be gentle when all the muscles in his hands were tight like that. Almost like a token pat, but at least this, Bo understood. Luke was just as angry as he was, but would never admit to it. He'd plan them around in circles first. Which was a useful enough thing.

* * *

He didn't like it not one bit. It was his own idea and he hated it. It made perfect sense, his plan, but Bo's was still better. Not that Bo was even fully aware of having a plan, he wasn't. He just wanted to go in, fists swinging, and make it right. Luke thought that was probably the best plan in the world. Except it could lead to Bo getting hurt and his cousin still wasn't recovered from yesterday.

So they were going with Luke's rational plan. Which he hated because his part in it consisted of staying home with Bo, trying to keep his anxious cousin calm, maybe convincing him to get some sleep, because it was only yesterday that he'd gotten smacked over the head by the same guys that were responsible for… no point in going too far down that road. He couldn't keep Bo settled down if he was all riled up himself.

"He's been gone too long, Luke." Well, at least Bo was intent on providing him with a distraction, even if it came in the form of nonstop complaining.

He gave his cousin the best eye roll he could manage. After all, they only had hours before they'd know anything useful, so he'd better nip Bo's worries in the bud. "He ain't even had time to get out of Hazzard yet, cousin. Why don't you just…" lying down would be the best choice, but unlikely. Bo didn't read a ton and wasn't about to take up the habit now. What other relatively calm thing could he send his cousin to do? They didn't do a lot of relaxing things, him and Bo didn't. "Come on," he changed his mind. Grabbed his cousin by the arm so he'd get up off the couch and follow him outside.

He left Bo by the General and headed off to the barn alone. So long as they stayed near a CB they'd be doing their part in the plan. Which was simple really, or should have been. Jesse was on his way to Sequatchie County to try to talk sense into a sheriff that had no need for sense, not in a county where he exerted absolute power. Didn't even have to answer to a county commissioner because Tennessee didn't work that way. But if anyone could make a man see reason it was Jesse. And then there was the fact that their uncle wasn't on probation and could go anywhere he dang well pleased, plus the fact that no one, not even a crazy sheriff, could lock up Jesse Duke. Even Boss felt ashamed of himself any time he tried to keep Jesse in a cell, and set the Duke patriarch free at the first opportunity he could do so without hurting his own pride.

Letting it go, Luke was supposed to be letting things go. Not letting the fact that Bo was hurt and Daisy was imprisoned get to him. How in heck he was supposed to let anything go, he didn't know, but he was also supposed to keep Bo calm and at least he had something of a plan with regard to that.

* * *

"Fishing? Luke, you sure you ain't the one with a concussion?" Because clearly Luke's brain had gone into remission.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Come on, as long as we're right by the CB it'll be all right."

Well. Maybe his tough, strong cousin could just sit back and wait for fish to impale themselves on a hook while Daisy was maybe being beaten (or much, much worse things that he was putting almost all of his energy into not thinking about) but Bo wasn't going to…

"You got anything better we can be doing?" Yeah, of course he did. They could be on their way to Tennessee right now, except for a little thing called probation.

"No." Must've sounded downright miserable, because Luke stashed the fishing poles in the trunk of the General, then came around to throw an arm across his shoulders.

"Then come on," and the arm hadn't been to comfort him at all, it turned out, but just to lead him to the passenger side of the car. Which he should have fought Luke on, but maybe he'd had enough of being mad at Luke. So he let his cousin help him into the car and protect the stitches on his head against the roof of the General (not that Bo had ever missed his mark when getting into this car, not once). Let Luke slide into the driver's side and start the car and drive them the mile that they could have walked if Luke wasn't such a mother hen, to the fishing hole just south of the farm, at the old retention pond. Not a great place to catch anything, but it would be a reasonable way to spend a day that was likely to be several times longer than any other day he'd ever spent, and he and Luke had been through some long ones.

Bo pulled himself out of the car, quick before Luke could get around to his side, and endured a half squint for that. He didn't want to argue with Luke, but he didn't have to give in every time, either. Got around to the trunk at the same time as his cousin and pulled out his own pole. Settled on the bank within listening distance of the CB and poked around in the dirt until he came up with a worm. This spot was a great place to catch worms, even if the fish were scarce. Baited his hook, chucked it in the water and pretended to care whether anything bit on it.

"Luke."

Just the barest grumble for an answer, because they were fishing and had to be quiet. At least that would be Luke's excuse, if Bo bothered to call him on it, but he wouldn't. He knew Luke's moods well enough.

"Jesse ain't going to get nowhere, is he?"

Another noncommittal grunt. Any stranger happening on them now would think Luke couldn't talk. And he couldn't, at least not nicely. Way back when, amongst the various instructions and reminders and just plain rules of growing up with Aunt Lavinia had been that if you didn't have anything nice to say, you didn't say anything. This explained Luke's verbal habits as well as anything ever would. He grunted as much as he spoke, because he almost never had anything nice to say about anyone or anything.

"Luke?" It was just the two of them, and Luke could just get over his sudden need for manners now.

"What?" It was growled, but it was at least a word.

"If Jesse don't get nowhere… I ain't hurt that bad."

"Bo." Oh that tone, he was about to get called an idiot. "That don't make no sense." Of course it made sense, Luke was just being stubborn in his thinking. Then again… he _was_ Luke Duke.

"All I'm saying is, when the time comes that we have to do something about Daisy, don't you be worrying about my head."

Luke wasn't looking at him, but there was a curl at the corner of his lip and Bo really wanted to swat him. "I ain't any more worried about your head than I am on a normal day, Bo."

And Bo was putting his pole down, turning towards Luke to make his cousin take him seriously by whatever means necessary, when Luke quit making that face that Bo hated so much.

"All right, Bo. If Jesse can't fix this," and Bo didn't reckon his cousin really believed Jesse could, "and we have to go after her, there ain't no one I want beside me more than you. Okay?"

Okay then. As long as Luke wasn't going to treat him like a kid.


	5. The Most Important Part

_Author's Note: Just a reminder that I monkeyed just a bit with Tennessee geography, for no other reason than I liked the names of places and wanted to put them together. Also, I got tired of proper grammar. (My English teachers are spinning in their graves. Except that I'm sure many of them are still alive, so maybe they are just spinning in their classrooms.)_

_I own nothing but the plot and some of the seemier characters, earn nothing for my efforts, and appreciate the feedback._

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Chapter 5 – The Most Important Part

Bo was not even close to sleeping, no matter how much he needed to be, no matter how much Luke wanted some quiet time to plan. Jesse had come home not two hours ago, just as unsuccessful as they'd predicted he would be. Their uncle told them everything over some re-warmed stew, how Kalb had near about laughed himself sick at Jesse's solid logic about how Daisy wasn't any kind of criminal and no threat to anyone (unless they got to standing too close to her while she was serving beer at the Boar's Nest). There was more to the story, but none of it mattered. Their cousin was still locked up in who-knew-what kind of conditions.

"We got to—"

"We're gonna do something, Bo, if you'll just settle down and let me think." They'd retired to their room if only because Jesse had gone off to bed. It was a long drive, too long for someone Jesse's age to be making on his own. (No matter how many times he told Luke to stop fussing over him.)

"What do you got to think of? We just got to go there and get her out. We'll just fight whoever we got to fight and do whatever it takes."

Could it be that simple, outside of Bo's mind? Was it possible that his cousin's fists-first approach was better than whatever he would plan if only Bo would stop nagging at him? No, couldn't be, there'd be some manner of guards and some kind of weapons. Dynamite arrows and barroom brawling skills wouldn't stand up against a real corrections operation, and no amount of mower teeth welded onto Cooter's tow truck would rip through the concrete walls that were likely to surround the place.

"He didn't even get to see her," Bo reminded him, as if he could have forgotten. "How do we know she's—"

"Because she's Daisy, she's a Duke and she can handle herself." Still, it was a valid consideration, whether Daisy was all right in there. Whether she was hurt or healthy and whether she could help them rescue her from the inside somehow.

Whoever 'them' was. Obviously it would be Bo and him, and they could count on Cooter. Jesse – if they could leave him behind, they should. Old men shouldn't exert themselves like he figured they were going to have to. Couldn't take Enos, didn't want Enos, really. The rest of their friends had up and gotten married, settled down. Dobro had a couple of kids, even.

"We're gonna fix it, Bo," he said, half to himself, half to keep his cousin from saying anything else.

* * *

Dang it, he hadn't meant to fall asleep. Luke hadn't slept, he could tell by the way his cousin's blankets were mussed (and oh, he must be distracted, too, or his 'rack' would have been able to pass military inspection). Luke had sat up all night, because the deepest indentation was too close to the headboard for sleeping. Must have thought all night (or most of it) then slipped out to do the chores before Bo could get up. He ought to sleep in and teach Luke a lesson for sneaking out like that, for assuming he wasn't up to working or something, but—no. Not today, not when he needed to be alert and ready for whatever they were going to do to rescue Daisy. Because that would happen as soon as Bo could prove to Luke that the concussion was a thing of the past, that he was fit for duty. So he sat up and fished around the side of the bed until he found yesterday's jeans (ignored the way bending like that made his head thump again). Didn't bother rooting around for a shirt, because he didn't need one. It was debatable whether he really even needed pants, considering there were no women in the house to see him in his shorts. Then again, Jesse would likely tan his hide for leaving the bedroom without making an honest effort to cover himself. Either that or Jesse'd decide that Bo's brain was obviously still bruised and that he needed to go back to bed.

Jeans, that was enough to get him out of the room, and if he needed to leave the house there were boots by the kitchen door. But somehow he figured he'd find Luke sitting at the kitchen table, still silently planning. So he got himself moving in that direction.

Half right. Luke was in his usual chair with that old, blue, chipped mug up to his lips, sipping at his coffee. What he hadn't expected to find was Jesse there, too. Probably they'd been going over whatever Luke had in mind. Likely they'd stopped talking when they heard him coming, because that was what they had always done. Used to be that Jesse and Aunt Lavinia did it when any of the kids came in the room, but it seemed like when their aunt died and there were only the four of them left, Luke and Jesse became the conspirators.

Which wasn't really fair. There had been things they had wanted to protect Bo and even Daisy from, back then. Like just how dangerous Jesse's job sometimes was, or if it was going to be a prosperous year or whether they'd need to wear last winter's boots, no matter how tight they'd gotten during the warm months. And when he was a kid, it made sense the way they all tried to keep him from worrying about things. But it just wasn't right, not anymore.

"Y'all can keep on talking, you ain't got to stop just because I'm here."

"Bo—" That was Jesse, and he was about to get a lecture.

"Good morning to you, too." And that was Luke. Bo couldn't see his mouth because he was hiding it behind the lip of that same mug his cousin drank from every morning, but he had a good idea that Luke was smirking. About the lecture that Jesse was about to give him.

"If you ain't got nothing better to say you can spend the day in the barn with Maudine. She'll set you straight. And Luke—" _don't go picking on your baby cousin._ "Just because Bo comes in here all… out of sorts," _like a cranky child._ "Don't mean you got to take a smart tone with him." Right, like Luke had any other tone except smart.

"I'm sorry Uncle Jesse," Bo said, like a reflex. Then again, he really was sorry. Truth was, he still had that headache, but there was no way he could let his kin know that or they wouldn't let him help with Daisy. And Luke needed him, because as strong and smart as Luke was, he couldn't take on the Sequatchie prison system all alone.

"Yes, sir," Luke echoed and somehow managed not to apologize, again. Funny how Bo was always the sorry one, while Luke was just— Luke. "Hey, Bo, go get shower and get dressed. We got to go into town and you got to look better than that."

"Shoot, Luke, a shower'll fix me right up, but ain't nothing you can do gonna make you look better." And oh, what a face he got for that one. As if Luke didn't care about his own looks, but Bo had seen him in front of the mirror on Saturday nights. "What are we goin' to town for and what does it matter what I look like?" Because he couldn't believe that Luke had intentions involving girls, not when Daisy was in so much trouble.

"We got to get us some travel permits to go on up to Tennessee." Well, that sounded about half right.

"It don't matter none whether we got travel permits, Luke. Once we hit Sequatchie…" they'd be in just as much trouble as Daisy had been, and travel permits weren't going to matter worth a pitcher of spit.

"They ain't gonna help, I know. But they'll keep us from getting stopped between here and there, and you know Boss could get into his head to try to catch us coming back into the county, after." After they rescued Daisy, because that part had to happen, and everything else was just—stuff he'd leave to Luke. Details didn't matter. "Besides, I need something from town." And that detail might have interested him some, along with—

"What are we gonna do, once we hit Sequatchie?" Oh, he was likely to get a snicker, get told to hold his horses or something, for blurting that. Cart in front of the horse, Bo, ain't you ever learned that that don't work so well?

Instead he got, "Just get ready, and I'll tell you about it on the way to town."

Yeah, he really must not have been feeling right, to assume Luke would keep the plan from him. The shower ought to do him some good, and he could grab a couple aspirins while he was in the bathroom. He'd be fine, once they got down to the business of fixing this thing with Daisy.

So he did as he was told and even ate the eggs that Jesse stuck under his nose, because refusing to eat would mean getting sent back to bed for sure, and finally, after what felt like hours, he and Luke got to town and made their way into the courthouse (voluntarily, and that just didn't happen every day). Stood in front of the men who had made most of their lives a lot harder than they needed to be (but then again, that went both ways), and asked for what amounted to help. A permit, please, to leave the state.

And encountered no resistance, which really didn't come as the surprise it might have on another day, because everyone in the room knew what the pass was really for. If there was one thing all of Hazzard had always agreed on (or at least for the last ten years or so, anyway) it was that Daisy Duke was a county treasure and no real harm should ever come to her. Even though he'd claimed it was his stolen money that motivated Boss to chase the Beaudrys into the mountains that one time, everyone knew that Daisy's safety was part of the equation as well.

"That Kalb, he's mean, he's mean," Rosco was muttering over in the corner, either to Flash or to the Dukes, no one could tell. "Jit!"

"Oh, hush Rosco," which was probably as much instinct for Boss to say as 'bless you' after a sneeze would be for anyone with manners. "It's true, though. I heard tell he locked up his own mama—"

"His own mama—" Rosco echoed.

"Just for jaywalking."

"Jaywalking—"

"On a dirt road—"

"Dirt road—"

"In the middle of nowhere."

"Nowhere." Boss turned his most withering look on Rosco, which really didn't consist of much more than lowered eyebrows and a big frown, nothing worse than a Saint Bernard would do, but it worked. "Jit!" Rosco added, before turning back to Flash and fiddling with her coat as if it were the most important task in the world.

"Yes, sir, Boss," and Bo was being as polite as he could stand to be, waiting there for J.D. Hogg to even put pen to the forms that would let them get on their way towards Daisy. "Now, could we just have the permits, please?" A thump on his arm from behind, Luke's elbow silently telling him to calm down. Not that Luke was any more peaceful than Bo was, it was all there in the way his older cousin shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Luke was making a show of staying cool.

"Bo," he was saying and that was more than was necessary, but then it turned into something other than the lecture Bo was expecting. "I'll meet you out by the General. I need to get us some things." Then he was no longer behind Bo, was trotting down the steps of the squad room, and after a few more seconds than it seemed like it should have taken, Bo heard the swinging doors. Luke was gone.

* * *

Like a kid at the school bell, Bo came bounding at him and the General, finally, passes still in his hand. Luke grabbed them, quick, before the wind could catch them (or Bo could lose them, because Bo was good at losing things) and jabbed them into his back pocket. Slid himself into the driver's seat because he didn't need an overanxious Bo breaking all kinds of speed limits behind the wheel. And permits wouldn't get them out of any kind of a traffic violation.

Bo settled with an utter lack of calm into the passenger seat, turning the key before Luke could get his foot on the clutch, then slamming the car into first. Might just as well have let him drive, what with his all-out efforts to destroy the General. Once the car was rolling, Bo was not any calmer, checking all the mirrors and even looking out the back windshield a couple of times, as if he expected Enos to pop up behind them, even if Luke was driving under the speed limit (even if they'd seen Enos ticketing cars in town not two minutes ago). Luke was about to tie his cousin down when Bo started in on the questions.

"How come we're going back to the farm?" As if it would have been a good idea to just go barreling off to Sequatchie, just the two of them and the General.

"We're meetin' Jesse and Cooter there to get the plan straight." Some day, maybe, Bo would learn to think before he did things. Then again, if he hadn't already… "Settle down, Bo." Because his cousin was still fidgeting around, watching out the back or whatever he was doing that didn't involve sitting still.

"What_ is_ the plan, Luke? You said you'd tell me on the way to town and we're already on our way back. And why are Enos and Rosco's bullhorns back here?" Yeah, Luke had stuck those behind his own seat. "Ain't we got enough trouble already? What're you doing with stolen property in the General?"

"That there's borrowed property, Bo. It just so happens that Rosco and Enos don't know we borrowed it."

"We? I didn't do no borrowin'. What's it borrowed for?"

"Sit down, Bo." It was instinct; his cousin was climbing around the car like the kid he'd maybe never stopped being, not all the way.

With a huff, Bo did as he was told. "Just tell me what the plan is." That was better, Bo was focused now.

Still, Luke didn't want to answer the question without knowing: "You sure you're feeling all right, Bo?"

And there it went, the reaction in Bo's body to those words. Eyes squinting down a bit, chest coming up, impatient shake of his head to get his hair out of the way of his vision, and Bo was about to yell at him, offer to fight him or something just so Luke would take him seriously (or just take him to Sequatchie), and that was as close to normal as Bo got. Must be in good enough shape for this trip.

"Steady, Bo." Using those words could go either way: Bo settling down, or Bo giving him what-for. So he followed that up with the thing he knew would get his cousin to pay attention. "I'm only asking because your part in the plan… it's maybe the most important part."

If it wasn't so serious, Bo would have grinned. As it was, his chin came back to normal from where he'd been jutting it. "Tell me," he said.


	6. The Lynchpin

_Author's note: Despite the fact that I have monkeyed with geography a little bit, Jesse's history of Ooltewah is accurate. Kalb is, of course, not real, and neither are his ancestors. But the once-upon-a-time James County story is factual (and I found it useful)._

_I don't own the Dukes or Hazzard, and don't earn anything for what I post here. Thanks for reading and I appreciate the feedback._

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Chapter 6 – The Lynchpin

Luke had done it to him again – it was just like him to set things up this way. Four people, three cars, someone had to ride with someone else, and that was how Bo got Jesse. Not that he minded the old-timer, he really didn't. Except Jesse was hell-bent on telling him the history of Ooltewah and Sequatchie County, and most of the story took place back before Jesse, even, had memories, so it was the kind of lore that got passed down and could hardly be trusted. It was probably interesting enough, assuming you were as long in the tooth as Jesse and cared a lick about history. Something about how poor the area was, something about how there had once been a James County and Ooltewah had once been the county seat. More stuff about an old courthouse that was still there from that time, but it no longer exactly served the purpose of justice. A subplot about Kalb's granddaddy and the pride he'd had to swallow when Ooltewah ran out of money and had to be annexed by Sequatchie County. Maybe he was supposed to be more understanding about Sheriff Kalb, poor fella, who ran the county like it was his own little kingdom, because back when Jesse was a boy, his ancestors had been forced to admit bankruptcy and give up their power? Bo didn't know, he just wished that the arrangement of people in cars had been different. This story of Jesse's, it was too much like school.

No doubt in his mind, not even a tiny one, that Luke had had his reasons for putting Jesse into the General with Bo. Maybe it was so their uncle could keep an eye on him, make sure he was really healthy enough for what was to come. Could have been that Luke figured Bo would get bored or lonely, riding alone. Then again, it was probably something more like Luke knowing that the only one of them that could really keep Bo driving the speed limit was Jesse. And if that was his cousin's plan, it was working.

Meantime, when he glanced in his rear view mirror he could spot Luke back there in Jesse's pickup, and behind that there was Cooter's tow truck, too heavy to keep up with the other vehicles. Didn't matter how far behind Cooter fell, they were all going to have to meet up just south of the Sequatchie line, anyway. There was a diner, Jesse said, where they could hold their last meeting before jumping headlong into Luke's plan.

Luke's plan, in which Bo was the lynchpin. As little as he'd wanted to be left behind, as much as he wanted to just get in there to rescue Daisy, it made his stomach a little uneasy, being at the center of this thing. Trusting Luke was like eating, something he did at least three times a day and sometimes more, if he could get away with it. Still, they were all taking a big risk on this plan, and as much as he was counting on Luke, Luke was counting on him.

Simple plan, really. Honest, straightforward, everything a Duke was. Yeah, there would be some tricks involved, but none that they'd have to answer to Saint Peter for when the time came (the girls, all the things he and Luke had done with girls, that was going to be Saint Peter's biggest concern, most likely).

Bo was going to march right into Kalb's office and demand Daisy's freedom.

(_"That ain't going to work, Luke," he'd informed his cousin._

_That clever smirk had blossomed on Luke's face, and it was a welcome thing for a change. Meant Luke knew exactly what he was doing._

"_It ain't supposed to."_)

Demand Daisy's freedom, be exactly his angry self, threaten to teach Kalb some manners, maybe even swing at him. In short, get himself arrested.

(_Here, Luke had stopped smirking, those brilliant eyes studying his younger cousin carefully. Bo didn't know, didn't want to think too hard about why the intensity of Luke's stare made his stomach knot up the way it did._

"_You sure you're up to this, cuz?" Yeah, he was sure. It wasn't like he'd never been arrested before, anyway. _

"_I'm fine, Luke." No accounting for how that didn't come out near as strong as Bo wanted it to. Seemed to satisfy Luke, though._)

Once he got inside, Bo was to do whatever he could, make whatever friends necessary, fight whoever he had to, to try to find Daisy. He would have done that much anyway, probably. But along with trying to make sure Daisy was all right, and trying to protect her in whatever way he could, he was to determine whether she could help, from the inside, just like he was going to.

Those friends he made on his way to Daisy—

(_"Be careful, Bo. Making friends in a prison – it ain't the same as making them in the Boar's Nest."_

"_I know that, Luke." Sometimes Luke must think Bo was an absolute idiot. _

"_Just watch who you say anything important to. They might could go and tell the guards or Kalb, hoping to get some kind of privileges or something." Luke was dead serious about this._

"_I know, Luke. You got to trust me."_

"_Ain't nobody I trust more," Luke said, just as casual as he would ask for the peas at the dinner table. Funny how Luke did that, said important things then acted like he'd said nothing at all. "But you ain't got a lot of time in there. So just try to pick carefully, is all."_

"_Right," he answered back in that same kind of pea-passing tone. Because drawing attention to what Luke had said would only lead somewhere sarcastic._)

He was supposed to enlist as much help as he could trust, on the inside. Trust, well, he trusted too easily, Luke was always complaining. And maybe that was true, when it was his own heart on the line, he assumed everyone's intentions were as good as his own. But when it came to Luke's trust, Bo tried to dole that out as carefully as Luke himself would. So he'd be careful in there, he'd try to figure out who was exactly as desperate as he was to break the place open, and he sure wouldn't give away any state secrets.

Anywhere along the way, if he had the opportunity, he should try to contact Luke and give him any helpful information he could, like how many inmates there were, how many guards, and whether there were any obvious weaknesses in the way they ran the place.

(_"It's a long shot, Bo. Don't go getting yourself killed or put in solitary or anything. Just, if there's a phone and you can use it, call me."_

"_Call you? We ain't got a car phone, Luke." Oh and didn't that just make Luke's eyes roll. _Think, Bo_, there in every line of his cousin's face._

_But all Luke said out loud was, "We'll set up shop somewhere with a phone, okay? I'll figure that part out when we get to Tennessee."_)

Bo was pretty sure that, short of smoke signals, there would be no contacting his cousin once he walked through the doors into Kalb's office. Which left it down to the endgame.

(_"If you don't somehow manage to walk out of there with Daisy first, we're comin' in after you."_

_Bo didn't bother to ask for the details of how. Those would be half made up on the fly, unless he actually could find a way to tell Luke what to expect._

"_We ain't gonna let you spend more than one night in there, neither…"_

_Which was really a way of saying that he wasn't going to let Daisy spend another night in there. She'd already been there through two nights with who knew what kind of men—_

"_So you got to work fast."_)

Bo, on the inside, was supposed to help keep the guards distracted while Cooter and Luke found one way or another into the place. Jesse was going to try to run some kind of interference on the outside, but that part would be improvised. Heck, pretty much the whole plan was going to be improvised.

(_"This part is important, Bo." Luke started studying him again, like he was trying to decide whether Bo was up to what he was going to be asked to do._

"_It's all important, cousin. Daisy's stuck in there right now and we got to get her out. So stop being dramatic and just tell me what I gotta do." Yeah, he might just have been a little bit nervous._

"_It's what you ain't gotta do, more like," Luke informed him. "Me and Cooter's comin' in there at six in the mornin'. Make sure that the guards are surprised when we get there, Bo. Don't let nobody know when we're comin'. You can tell the other prisoners to be alert or whatever, but don't tell 'em any more'n that. Just in case they ain't on our side."_)

So really, it ought to go about like any plan of Luke's ever did. Which meant he'd need to be on his toes and expect to get hit in the face a few times before it was all over. But they'd win.

* * *

It was taking too much time, this stop at the diner, or Jesse was slowing things down on purpose. He did that sometimes, claiming that Luke and Bo didn't know the value of taking their time and doing things right. And maybe he was even right sometimes, but now just wasn't one of those times.

Jesse was telling them something about the county they hadn't yet crossed into (the place he was sending his kid cousin to get himself thrown into a prison that was designed to keep him there a lifetime) trying to get them to understand the history and culture of the place. Rather than jump up and pace around the mostly empty tables in this diner (because that would only lead to threats of a tanned hide, and knowing Jesse he'd want to turn around right now and head back to the farm to do it, too) Luke fell back on his military past. There'd been plenty of hurry up and wait there, and he'd survived it by thinking and rethinking the plan.

Jesse, Luke wasn't too worried about him. Aside from his need to go over the past, the old man was plenty sharp. Besides, the role he was meant to play wouldn't require physical stress, just ingenuity, and his uncle had plenty of that. The main thing Jesse could do was keep them all motivated (through threats of whippings), because that was how things worked best.

Cooter, well, they wouldn't be able to get to Daisy without him. Though the he'd grown up frighteningly quickly after years of being a half-wild, Cooter still loved a good fight and could take a beating and stay standing. Then there were the other things he could do, and he'd be doing them soon enough.

Somewhere around the time that Jesse was wrapping up his little story (Luke could tell by the inflections of the old man's voice. Tale telling was an art and his Uncle was probably one of the last in town who could still do it well) he turned his eyes and thoughts to Bo.

He'd given his cousin probably the least physically taxing role he could, assuming, that was, that he didn't get himself beaten in there. And if there was one thing Bo did well, it was to start fights, regardless of whether he could win them. But even if his cousin managed not to let his temper get the best of him (and the odds of that were about as good as the odds of Boss denouncing his crooked ways and donating all his money to charity – oh, wait, that had actually happened once) there was only so much that Bo would control once he got in there. If the guards or other inmates wanted to beat him, well, they would.

Luke was a fool. Why were they doing this again?

"Bo," he interrupted whatever Jesse was saying. "We gotta switch. I'll go into Kalb's office, get myself arrested."

Bo looked… angry? Not quite. His face was about the same as when he got angry, eyes slightly squinted, mouth a straight, narrow line.

"Luke." Serious, that was how Bo looked. Luke had only seen him look this way once or twice in his life (_like right before you headed off to war_, his helpful brain reminded him, _just a kid then and he looked like_—) "You got to stay out here. You're the one who can run the break-in. It ain't nothing I got practice in, running a mission like this. You can't do it from the inside."

That was all very logical, but it didn't hold a candle to—

"Bo, you could get tortured in there." Somewhere at the periphery of his thoughts he was aware of Jesse and Cooter, silently watching this exchange. It would really help if their uncle would tell Bo how bad it could be in there.

"Daisy's in there, cuz. If there's torture going on in there, then I got to get in there fast." And Bo wasn't wavering a bit, but Luke wouldn't expect him to. "I'm fine, Luke."

Fine, maybe, maybe not. He'd never admit it if he wasn't fine. But it didn't matter. Luke didn't want to send even a healthy Bo into—

"Luke." That was his uncle, finally. "You need to let Bo do this. You can't do everything, boy. You got to let Bo do his part. And—" because Luke had opened his mouth to speak, but as usual Jesse had more wisdom to dole out, "You got to do your part. Luke, you done planned this thing real careful. You told me yourself, you need one of you on the inside, that's Bo. You need one of you on the outside, that's you."

And that was all true, but… Luke let all the air in his lungs out with a strong enough huff it could have blown out candles on the next table over, if there'd been any. Finally he just nodded. He honestly couldn't think of a better way to go about it than to let his kid cousin go in there without him.

"I'll be careful, Luke. I ain't got no desire to let them mess up my pretty face." Of course he didn't. Luke smiled anyway, even though it wasn't all that funny, because it was what Bo wanted him to do. "Just," and here that serious look came back to Bo's face, but didn't stay for more than a second. "Why am I taking the General into Sequatchie? He's only going to get impounded."

"I'm counting on that," Luke informed him. He appreciated the distraction, but, "Bo, be careful in there. Don't go—"

"Swinging at the wrong guy. I know, Luke. I won't."

"Just do what you can and hang in there. We'll be there for you before dawn, Bo. It'll only be this afternoon and tonight you gotta make it through."

"I'll be fine, Luke." Words that were meant to reassure him, and they should have worked. There was no accounting for the nagging feeling in Luke's gut: he was about to lose Bo.


	7. More Than He or Luke Bargained For

_Author's note: These next couple of chapters are a little rough for Hazzard standards. Which is part of why they don't take place in Hazzard. Anyway, you might not like some of the things that happen here, but they were necessary in their own way. _

_The only ones I own are the ones you're going to want to kill by the end of this sequence (and that's okay, I'm on your side). I don't earn anything for what I post here._

_Thanks for sticking with me so far!_

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Chapter 7 – More Than He or Luke Bargained For

Things weren't going well. On the surface maybe it would seem that they were, but here underneath, in that place you could drown, things just weren't going well at all.

He'd gotten himself arrested, but before that twisted little victory could be celebrated, he'd won another one. Sort of. Because he was supposed to try to see Daisy, and he was seeing her. And what he was seeing was more than he or Luke bargained for.

Kalb had welcomed Bo in his own strange little way.

"Another Duke," he'd greeted with a hacking cough, when a steaming mad Bo had stormed into his office in a completely unscripted rage. Yeah, there was a plan behind his actions, but his emotions were exactly what they'd always been: uncontrolled. "How _unexpected_."

Kalb wasn't a tall man, nor a very dangerous-looking one. He was meaty, maybe, in a lazy sort of way. Like if he'd spent any time behind a plow he might have had some muscle, but the solidness of his shape had more to do with being well fed than anything else. Under a different set of circumstances, Bo could easily have leveled the man, who appeared to be pushing sixty and had the chronic cough of a lifetime smoker. In fact, forgetting for a moment that the cards were stacked against him, Bo leaned his entire frame forward, over Kalb's desk and nearly into his face.

"You oughtta be expecting me, Kalb, because we Dukes, we don't let no one mess with our family," he blurted, even if somewhere at the back of his head he could imagine Luke wincing at him. _It's called sarcasm, Bo. He's just using it to get a rise out of you. _Yeah, well, it was working, and so what if Luke would have kept cool and quiet. This Kalb fella, he needed to learn exactly why you didn't separate Dukes from one another. "I'm here to see Daisy and I dang well mean to see her!" Bo was so close to the Sequatchie County Sheriff that the man had to back up a bit just to breathe.

Or maybe it was just to signal his deputies, men that Bo hadn't seen but suddenly felt yanking him backwards, turning him and shoving him against the metal wall on the side of the simple, unfinished trailer that served as the Sequatchie sheriff's office. These men, the deputies, were every bit as young and strong as Kalb wasn't, and it was probably overkill to sic all three of them on Bo at once. Then again, he was mad enough that he might have been able to throw off two. As it was he probably accomplished Luke's worst nightmare, because he resisted enough to get himself slammed a couple of extra times against the wall, hitting exactly on that little spot where his hair had been shaved and his scalp stitched, only a couple of days ago. He was likely bleeding, and definitely hurting.

Before he could even put his hands up to signal surrender, one of the deputies (or maybe all of them) swung him around and grabbed his arms, and he was cuffed. Seemed like he and his throbbing head were busted. Luke would be so proud.

"You hear that?" Kalb was asking, and Bo couldn't hear much of anything over the way his head was pounding. Didn't seem to matter, because Kalb apparently wasn't talking to him. "He requested to see one of the prisoners. Duke, I believe, first initial D. Deputy Johnson, you want to bring him your favorite prisoner?"

The sly smiles that slid across all four men's faces made Bo struggle against the cuffs and the hands that were pushing him into the cheap plastic chair facing Kalb and his oversized desk. Looked just as flimsy as the chairs in the room and as ugly as the carpet on the floor. Somewhere on the way down he felt a hand in his back pocket and then a sudden looseness there. His wallet got tossed onto the desk in front of Kalb, but he couldn't have cared less about that, not when they were still smirking over Daisy that way.

"Hey!" Bo hollered, because there wasn't anything more he could really do, couldn't swing a fist, couldn't hardly move. "That's my cousin you're…" He planned more words, but couldn't say them around the fist that landed across his mouth. It was a glancing blow as much as anything. Nothing like a real hit, not half as hard as Luke had hit him back when they'd fought about that carnival (and Luke always pulled his punches against Bo) jump he'd planned to do. But the taste of blood was there anyway, and it was enough to make him stop yelling, at least for now.

"Sit down," Kalb advised through a coughing fit, as if Bo wasn't already pinned into a chair. "Stay with us awhile," he muttered as he poked through the nearly nothing that Bo had in his wallet. It wasn't like Dukes had much of anything to carry in a wallet to begin with, and he'd removed all the photos and trinkets that were precious to him and handed them over to Luke for safekeeping about an hour ago. Kalb couldn't be looking at much more than his driver's license and two dollars.

"This is Beauregard Duke," Kalb introduced, like Bo had stopped over for some sweet tea and to sit a spell on the porch of Kalb's home. "He's come to stay with us for a bit. Let's make him feel at home, shall we?" Bo had a powerful feeling that this home had more than a passing acquaintance with violence. He braced himself for another hit, but it didn't come. "Johnson, he's come to visit his kin. Bring her here, directly, would you?"

And _that was too easy_, Luke was saying in the dark corners of his brain. His cousin always expected the worst out of everyone, but this time Bo thought Luke's point of view probably had merit. They weren't going to bring him Daisy, it would be…

Slithering (oh, Johnson, he didn't move like a human, he slid kind of low and sideways, one eye looking right and the other left, and Bo would have bet the whole two dollars in his wallet, if he could have, that Johnson's tongue was forked) through an archway that Bo hadn't paid any attention to when he'd come in, Johnson slipped out through a door on the far end of the trailer. Bo couldn't see the detail of what lay beyond that door, but it was on the side of the tin can of a sheriff's office, which abutted the old courthouse building. The prison was that way, and that wasn't really news. Jesse's lecture of the morning had told him that much. Kalb was using the building from which his own grandfather had ruled a now nonexistent county in order to house the current county's prisoners.

"So, Duke, first initial B.," and Bo was already annoyed by that particular habit of Kalb's. "You came to see your cousin, eh?"

"Yes, sir," because manners applied, even when the other guy was a jerk. Aunt Lavinia and Luke, they were maybe the only two people whose advice he could remember around the ringing in his head.

"Just you, huh?"

"Huh?" Bo echoed, because he didn't quite understand the question or because he just couldn't think straight.

"Just you, not your other cousin, Duke, first initial L. Not your Uncle," and here Kalb paused for a moment, wrinkles on his already wrinkled forehead getting just that much wrinklier, "Jesse Duke."

"No sir," Bo answered, relieved to have grasped what was being asked of him, because the two deputies whose names he didn't know yet, they still had an ungentle hold of his shoulders. "Luke ain't with me, nor Jesse neither." Which was true in an obvious sort of way. Bo was, after all, the only one in the room (and in Ooltewah, at the moment. That would change, but not right away).

"I imagine they'll be along…" Kalb answered, and those words in that tone, Bo could have heard them even if he'd been unconscious. His stomach turned to mush and he wished he'd skipped the BLT back at the diner. "But first, let's you and me get acquainted, shall we?" It was odd, how this man could genuinely sound like they were sitting on the back porch of an old cabin overlooking fields and mountains, and maybe any minute now his wife would bring out cookies to go with that tea.

Meanwhile, Bo was anything but sitting back, relaxed and cross-legged, expecting a tasty treat. Though they were pinned behind him and handcuffed, Bo's fists were clenched and aching to make contact with Kalb or either of the two deputies whose nametags he still hadn't seen enough of to read. He was held down, quite firmly and uncomfortably, by the shoulders.

"I'd shake your hand and say how-de-do, but as you can see, I'm kind of busy over here," Bo advised him, leaving out the 'sir' and the civility. _Don't go swinging at the wrong guy_, Luke reminded him from somewhere in the back of his head, but it was useless, honestly. Luke wasn't here, and Bo's jaw ached from the way he was trying to clench it shut, not to mention the way the rest of his body hurt. He was even kind of nauseous and then there was the fact that he was maybe bluffing just a little bit.

_Hang in there until six_, had been Luke's final quiet reminder to him before Bo had revved up the General's engine to head here. Six in the morning – that might just be too long.

Then again, about the time he was thinking that, Johnson returned with a woman that was about the same height and weight as Daisy Duke, but otherwise barely resembled her. It wasn't just the shapeless and ugly brown jumpsuit, or the greasy and uncombed look to her hair. It wasn't even entirely in her face, the hollow-eyed look, the knuckle sized bruises (oh, he struggled against the handcuffs on seeing that. Didn't do anything except cut up his wrists, but he struggled) on her cheek. It was the way she walked, like old Miz Thomas whose body was wracked with arthritis. It was the way she didn't look at him, the way she didn't have any fight in her at all. It was in the way she let Johnson push her into another of cheap, plastic chairs in the room, and didn't even flinch when those knuckles (knuckles as white as her face was, knuckles exactly the size and distance apart as the bruises in the middle of all that white) dug into her shoulder as a reminder about sitting still.

"Daisy," he said, not even meaning to, not wanting Kalb or any of the men in the room see exactly how Daisy's demeanor had cut him to the quick.

Her head came up and she looked at him then, like she was just realizing that he was in the room. The wideness of her eyes, suddenly, that hollow no-one's-home look gone, caught him off guard. Horror, that was the look in her eyes, a kind of fear that he'd only ever seen on her face when they were kids and it became obvious that Aunt Lavinia was going to pass away within the week.

"Bo," she said, and that horror from her eyes was in her voice, too. "Don't…" and Johnson hit her, backhand. If this was Hazzard, Johnson would be wearing a pitcher of beer, he'd be ducking under Bo's fist only to be hit by Luke's, he'd be… a dead man. But this wasn't Hazzard, and Bo's attempts to get up and do something about what Johnson had just done only led to him being shoved back into his chair, cuffs cutting deeper into his wrists.

"Just a dang minute," he was hollering and then he was seeing stars.

* * *

"Settle down, boy." The words were at the periphery of his consciousness, just like the whole of Jesse and Cooter's conversation had been.

Luke picked up another napkin, started at the top left corner. Tore himself a strip like he was ripping bandages from sheets to help his uncle with the birthing of a cow.

He was stupid, he shouldn't have let Bo go, shouldn't have sent his cousin off to that kind of a place. Bo could handle himself most days and in some pretty crazy situations. But this was different, this was a place where strong, healthy men went in and never came out. Bo knew jail like he knew farming (probably better than he knew farming, actually, he always seemed to have more fun in jail than out in the fields) but this wasn't jail, this was likely everything the Osage Road Gang had been, except Luke wasn't there to keep an eye on his cousin. Who had a concussion, and who was young, would always be young, no matter how many years he lived. Bo was immortal, or thought he was, anyway. He hadn't ever really been in any kind of danger that Luke couldn't handle, knew nothing, really, of being alone, or outnumbered. Bo hadn't faced war, had never jumped without a working parachute, didn't have any idea of what it would mean if Luke couldn't catch him this time. Bo walked into all situations with the knowledge that he would walk right back out the exact same man that he'd always been. And Luke had sent his overgrown kid of a cousin right into the middle of the one thing he couldn't be sure that Bo would neatly walk away from. He was a fool.

Bo had never faced anything on his own, or nothing worse than Diane Benson and her carnival, anyway.

Somewhere in the corners of his vision, the waitress came by their table for the hundredth time, topping off Cooter's coffee. He probably ought to put a stop to all that coffee drinking that Cooter was doing. The last thing he'd need would be a jumpy mechanic, but then again, it was hours and hours and hours before they'd be breaking in there to rescue Bo – and Daisy, who was in there, too, and that was as much Luke's fault as Bo being in there. The only difference was, he hadn't chosen to send Daisy in there like he'd done with Bo. Luke put a hand over his own cup to indicate that he didn't want a refill, and the waitress walked away tsking, either at his refusal to let her serve him or at the mess of shredded napkins spread all over the table. Pretty soon he was going to have emptied that whole metal thingamajig of them, and then he had no idea what he'd do with his hands.

What were 32 parked cars and a half-crazy, fuel line-cutting ex-boyfriend in comparison to this place he'd sent Bo? What kind of experience did kissing the wrong girl give Bo that would help him handle the violence of prison? Diane had been good at mind games, but she'd had no stomach for actually hurting Bo. Kalb, he was a lot more ruthless than the near-broke, barely keeping-things-together carnival owner was, even on Diane's most manipulative day.

There were facts here and they added up to disaster. A corrupt and unchecked system of government, running its own prison. His cousins in there, one with all the vulnerability in the world, just by virtue of her own beauty, the other with a concussion. And all they had on their side was a plan, a stupid plan, a lousy half-baked plan that was—

Jesse grabbed his right hand in one of his meaty, old-man's paws. All attempts to shake him off weren't working and this was just a dangerous thing for Jesse to do, trying to hold Luke still right now. Luke wanted to push him away, fight him if he had to, whatever it took to make Jesse let him go, and… he sighed, instead, loud, explosive, the kind of thing that would have gotten him sent away from the dinner table if Aunt Lavinia had been here to see it.

"Luke," Jesse was saying. "You need to settle down."

"Sure, I do," he snapped. "I need to settle down while Bo's in there… and he's… and Daisy's…" he used his left hand to finish each of those thoughts. Had to use his weaker hand to try to convey everything he couldn't say, because Jesse still had ahold of his stronger one.

"Luke," and there was that patient sound, the one that usually came just before the high-pitched I'm-obviously-talking-to-an-idiot tone. "Bo is stronger than you give him credit for."

Luke let loose with another sigh, this one creeping around the edges of becoming a bitter laugh.

"Luke," and this time the tone was much more of a warning. "Your cousins – both of them – are capable of a lot more than you seem to realize. You need to let them take care of themselves for now. They can do it, trust me."

Luke didn't say anything of how many times he'd had to carry Bo home with what amounted to a scratch on his knee, because his kid cousin couldn't tolerate pain. Didn't say it, but thought of all the times he and Bo had taken down the guys that wanted Daisy in all the wrong ways.

"What you got to do, Luke, is settle down enough to do your part right." Oh, of course, that was the problem. It wasn't that Bo and Daisy were in the middle of who-knew-what without Luke there to protect them. It was that Luke wouldn't be able to carry out his own mission. As if Luke hadn't executed hundreds upon hundred of plans (most of which Jesse didn't even know about) and come out the other side just fine.

But this was Jesse, the man who had raised him, and who he respected above anyone else he'd ever known. So he didn't say anything stronger than, "Yes, sir."

And went right on back to believing that he'd done the stupidest thing possible, sending Bo off to Ooltewah alone.


	8. Hang in There

_Author's Note: Again, things that happen in this chapter would not be tolerated in Hazzard. Even Boss Hogg would get mad at this. Maybe this is why Dukes should never leave Hazzard County._

_I own none of the ones you like and all of the ones you hate, and earn nothing for the just plain rotten things that I do with them all. _

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Chapter 8 – Hang in There

"Now, now, he's our guest." The words and echoing cough were reaching through the pounding in Bo's head. He hadn't taken that hard of a hit, he didn't think, but it wasn't like he was starting out with his full strength anyway.

"Bo," and that made him snap his eyes open from where he'd squeezed them shut against the pain. Daisy was scared – for him, for herself? He couldn't tell. Barely got a focus on her face and Kalb was talking again.

"Her, on the other hand," and Johnson hit Daisy again, open handed slap that left a red mark across bruises that were fresh enough that they hadn't even begun to turn green yet… and that brought tears to Daisy's eyes.

"Quit that!" Bo was shouting, ripping his own wrists to shreds in trying to get free, struggling against two deputies that were doing their damndest to hold him down. Movement everywhere, no leverage even to bite the hands that were pushing on him, felt the slip and slide, vertigo before the tip—

He was on the ground, chair upended in the struggle. His head, he'd managed to keep that at least from slamming into the dirty old linoleum, through his shoulder had hit just as hard as when he'd gotten tackled on a frost-hardened football field. He kicked the chair away, kicked at anything that tried to come too close. He didn't have arms to fight with, but his legs were plenty long and strong.

It all worked fine until he took a boot in the ribs, knocked the breath right out of him, made him cough and curl up as much as possible to protect his stomach from further assault. Somewhere in trying to remember how to breathe, he felt himself hauled up to a sitting position, still on the floor.

"Now, I said you was a guest, and I expect you to behave like one." That was Kalb's smoker's voice, coming from above him. Apparently the sheriff had managed to get to his feet somewhere in there, and from down here on the floor where everything was out of proportion, Kalb loomed a lot larger than he'd seemed to a few minutes ago. "Boys, get him seated properly again."

He wanted to fight it, with everything in him, being seated like a little boy, being chastised like only Aunt Lavinia had ever dared. But he still didn't have the breath, his head wasn't any clearer than before this last struggle, and there were three of them, if you counted Kalb, hauling him up. And you kind of had to count Kalb, since the place he'd chosen to grab Bo was by his hair. It took everything in him not to yelp like the child Kalb seemed to think he was.

"Now, _guest_," Kalb said, followed by a wracking cough. Everything stilled for a second while the sheriff got a good breath. "You can make all of this stop. But not by rolling around on my floor like a dog in heat." Bo had never seen any of the Duke's mating dogs do a lot of rolling when they were in heat, but he wasn't going to correct the man. Not about that, anyway. The rest of it though…

"You ain't got no call to be hitting a man that ain't got the use of his hands to fight back!" No, that wasn't what he meant to say. Dang his aching head. "You ain't got no call to hold Daisy at all! You just…"

And Johnson drew back his hand again. Daisy tried not to flinch, but Bo saw it, the way she turned her head a bit to the side and squinted her eyes against the blow. But Kalb, moving quicker than Bo might have guessed he could, caught Johnson's arm.

"You want to bargain, Duke, first initial B?" Kalb was asking him, oblivious to the glare on Johnson's face. Oh, that man wanted to hit Daisy more than he wanted to follow orders.

"You get him away from her!" Bo snapped.

"You ain't in no position to tell me how I run my office," Kalb informed him.

"I ain't bargaining," whatever that even meant, because Kalb hadn't said what he wanted, "Until he ain't nowheres near her."

Kalb shrugged, let loose with some more coughing, and then said, "No skin off my back. Johnson, switch with Lewis." Great, Bo had gotten the sadistic monster away from Daisy, and closer to himself. Oh, well, it was as good a trade as he could have hoped for, actually. He sighed.

"What do you want, Kalb?"

"That's Sheriff to you," Kalb corrected, and Johnson swatted Bo's face, just for good measure. Didn't much hurt anymore, maybe he was losing the feeling in his cheek. Or maybe Johnson wasn't quite so big and tough when the person he was hitting was male.

"Sheriff," Bo echoed and really wanted to spit at the man, if only to get the blood out of his mouth. Didn't do it, it would only make things worse, and it wasn't only his own neck that he was risking. "What kind of bargain did you have in mind?"

"You tell me exactly when I can expect your cousin and uncle to be paying me a visit. I don't imagine they'll be as polite as you were, announcing yourself by driving right on up in that noisy orange thing." Oh, Kalb knew how to get under a guy's skin, all right.

"I don't imagine they'd want to be your guest much at all," Bo answered, trying to be as cool as he was sure Luke would, were he here.

"Don't play with me, boy." It was the first sign of true annoyance in the man, the first time it seemed like he might be getting tired of the game. Which was really too bad, as far as Bo was concerned. He had yet to enjoy any part of what was happening. "Hazzard ain't that far away that I don't know all about the famous Duke boys and just how much fun they have thumbing their nose at the law. Not that I blame you boys, ain't much you can do with the Hazzard law, other than thumbing your nose. Still, this ain't Hazzard, and I'm really glad you dropped by. You'll make a mighty fine notch in my desk here," and while he hadn't quickly slipped back into game mode, Kalb's demeanor had changed. He sat himself back down behind his desk and ran a hand along the near edge, which did appear to be a bit carved up. Opened a drawer that Bo couldn't see into, but that didn't matter a lot since Kalb held up the Buck knife he'd withdrawn, showing it off to Bo. "Passed down from my granddaddy," he remarked casually. Started digging the tip into that rough edge of his desk.

Bo wasn't going to give Kalb the satisfaction of reacting to the knife. Besides, his head was still spinning with how to mislead the Sequatchie County law about Luke's intentions. The whole point was that his cousin and Cooter coming for them (setting foot into this same trap, just two unarmed men) needed to be a surprise (or they'd get themselves hurt, maybe killed).

"That-there notch is for your cousin," he said, pointing the knife in Daisy's general direction. "I'm still working on it, trying to make it just as purty as she is. That spot right there," he said, pointing the blade at an unmarred section of the desk, "that's gonna be for you. And your other cousin. One big notch for the both of ya, since everyone knows you're a package deal."

Too much time as the all-powerful sheriff of a fairly desolate county had clearly left Kalb a somewhat less-than-sane man.

"So why don't you just tell me when he's coming so we can get this whole thing over with, quick and painless?"

Painless, well his head had a few arguments against the idea that any of this was painless.

"Luke ain't here," he said simply, brain spinning to come up with something better than that.

"Lewis," Kalb said casually, nodding his head.

"No," Daisy yelled, flinching away, but it didn't stop anything. As thoughtlessly as he might pull weeds from a garden, Lewis grabbed a handful of Daisy's hair and pulled her head back. His other hand was just balling into a fist…

"Don't," Bo hollered, again fighting against his handcuffs and the men holding him down.

"He won't," Kalb advised him, "as long as you get real honest about when I can expect your kin."

"Bo, don't!" Daisy yelled, and Lewis hit her, hard, as if she was a man and not Bo's girl cousin.

"Stop!" He no longer much noticed the thrum of pain in his body from fighting against everything that was trying to hold him still.

"Ready to tell me?" Kalb asked.

"Bo…" Daisy said again, and this time it was almost a whisper. When he looked at her, her lip was already swelling, he face white, but her eyes were defiant, and her head was shaking. _Don't tell them_.

"Lewis," Kalb was saying, and Bo was starting to think he should have left things as they had originally been, with Johnson hitting Daisy. As least he didn't use a fist.

Lewis didn't wait for instructions; maybe he already knew what they were, maybe he felt like making his own move anyway. Didn't matter, all that Bo cared about was the fact that Lewis grabbed Daisy's jumpsuit roughly, and tore it. Mostly it revealed her shoulder, but then the back had come partly unzipped, too. It was only inches from being obscene, or—

Lewis looked him right in the eyes, licked his lips, and winked as he reached a rough hand towards Daisy's bared skin. She shifted away and that only revealed more of what Lewis was about to touch or grab or—

"Six!" Bo said, just loud enough to make everything stop. Might have spoken louder or more forcefully, except his mouth was too dry. Might have fought but Daisy's white skin had sapped all energy away from him. "Luke'll be here at six."

"Good boy," Kalb said, either to him or Lewis, Bo couldn't tell which.

Daisy shrugged her jumpsuit around to cover as much of herself as possible and refused to look at him.

* * *

It had been remarkably easy (too easy, his brain kept reminding him, but his cousins were in there, so it didn't matter if it was too easy, he had to keep going) to climb up the side of the dark trailer (seemed like Kalb and crew worked banker's hours) then use the rope they'd looped around the old chimney to scale the side of the two-story, brick building and get to the roof. He and Cooter had managed to tiptoe around until they'd found the best place they could to enter from. Cooter had hoped for a lock he could pick, Luke was just glad they didn't need the chain saw he had hooked around his shoulder. What they had found was somewhere in between: an old, welded, trap door. Yeah, he'd need the blow torch, and that was why they'd used the flashlight to signal Uncle Jesse, down there in front of the impound yard, maybe two hundred fifty feet away from the trailer. Now it was just a matter of waiting for Jesse to do his part.

Too much time waiting. All afternoon and into the night, just waiting and thinking about Bo. It wasn't not knowing what would happen that bothered Luke, it was more like knowing exactly what would happen. Because he knew Bo better than he knew himself, even, knew what Bo would and wouldn't do, the limits of Bo's patience and exactly how quickly he'd jump into danger. Knew he'd lose his temper at some point, knew that he'd—

And there it was, finally, blessedly. He'd never tried this particular combination of things before, though it was simple, really. Jesse's old pickup truck horn blasted non-stop through a bullhorn. Made an unholy noise, not quite a honk, almost more of a wail. Definitely distracting and that was what he was counting on as he fired up the blow torch, Cooter fidgeting at his side.

"Hang in there, cuz," he whispered as he concentrated on not setting the building on fire.


	9. Until Six

_Author's note: This is a longer chapter; then again it's mostly action and those tend to be._

_I don't own them, don't earn from them, do appreciate you all for sticking with this one._

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Chapter 9 – Until Six

It was a good thing there were no mirrors in this cell, probably. Bo hadn't thought about that before he'd deliberately gotten himself locked up here, but it wouldn't have meant anything to him back then anyway. Now he was grateful for the emptiness of the space, stripped down cot, a commode that made the Dukes' old outhouse seem palatial in comparison, and nothing else. No mirror to see how badly he'd been bruised by the beating he'd taken (and despite Kalb's occasional assertions that he was a guest here, there'd been more hitting after he'd told them what they wanted to hear than there had been before. Some effort to beat more details out of him or something, and fortunately, he didn't know any). But that didn't matter to him, they could have left him black and blue from head to toe and that wouldn't have made it impossible to look at himself in the mirror. No, it was betraying Luke that had done that to him.

Daisy also hadn't been able to look at him after he'd given in like that. He'd done it for her, to protect her from those animals. Of course, now that he was stuck in here with more time to think than he'd ever wanted in his life, he realized that he'd not really saved her from much of anything. Maybe nothing more than a few (painful looking) hits and a torn jumpsuit were all that had happened in front of him, but now that they'd taken her back to wherever they were keeping her, Kalb and friends could be doing anything they wanted to her. He'd betrayed Luke for no reason at all.

And then there was the rest of the evening and now probably night, spent locked up here alone. Not solitary, nothing like that. In fact, now that he was inside, he didn't think this place had anything as sophisticated as solitary confinement. It was more like the whole place was a collective form of abandonment. There were other men (and maybe women, maybe just Daisy, he didn't know) here, he could hear them, but he hadn't seen them, even when he'd been brought to this cell. And what sounds he did hear weren't exactly conversations or even exchanged words. It was the clatter and hum of individual men, each trapped in their own little box.

So he'd failed again, hadn't made any friends, hadn't told anyone (except the people that absolutely shouldn't know) that there was help coming, hadn't gained Luke any allies, only enemies. He knew more about the place, had some sense that there were weaknesses that Luke could exploit, but hadn't found a way to contact his cousin.

Somehow he'd missed dinner, or there was none (oh, there had to have been; he'd been vaguely aware of the dead silence of the place for a half hour or so), or maybe he was being further punished for being a Duke. He momentarily wondered whether Kalb had started working on that new notch in his desk yet, then idly figured that the sheriff wouldn't start on that until he had Luke, too.

And there he went, thinking like his cousin, expecting the worst. Maybe it was the headache weighing down on him. Apparently he would not be receiving medical attention here, because he was fairly sure that it was obvious that he was hurt. He'd put a tentative hand up to that shaved patch on the back of his head earlier; it had come away with blood on it. He didn't expect the stitches had withstood the repeated times he'd been shoved against the trailer wall or found himself on the floor.

But none of that was important. He was fine, really. Hungry, tired, a little sore, but he'd been worse off in his life (and _every_ time he'd ever really been hurt, Luke had come for him). The only thing that was important was that Luke would be walking right into a trap, the same one Daisy got caught in, the same one he was locked up in right now. The main difference was, this trap that Luke was walking into – this one, Bo had helped to set.

_Hang in there until six_, Luke had told him. Six, and he didn't have a watch to guess how long it was until six. No windows, not even the barred kind. Six could be an hour from now, but his gut told him that it probably wasn't even midnight yet. Six o'clock was too far away.

And too soon. Because when six came, Luke (and Cooter probably, but definitely Luke) was doomed.

Bo sat on his cot, tried to lean back against the wall, but couldn't, not with the (probably open, definitely raw) wound on the back of his head. So he slumped over, onto his side, halfway laying down. Closed his eyes for a minute against the slight sway of his cell.

The first thing he was aware of was his heart trying to escape from his chest in a pounding fury, then over the sound of blood rushing through his ears he heard what must have startled him: an eerie sort of wailing sound. Was it an alarm? Could it be six already? He hadn't fallen asleep, he would swear to that. Just resting his eyes, was all. Didn't matter now, he'd be on alert until whatever this was (_of course it's Luke_, his brain reminded him, _rushing in for his own funeral_) had played itself out.

He hoped, after a few days, maybe weeks, sometime after Kalb tired of his new prisoners, he'd be allowed to go to meals. Maybe he'd get to see Luke for a few minutes there each day. Maybe, if he apologized enough, some day Luke would forgive him for this.

* * *

It had taken him way too long to melt away that old soldered seam, and then they'd had to wait for the steel door to cool enough to swing it open. Everything was happening about like running through molasses, giving whatever manner of guards this place had the time to figure out that something was coming. Surprise, that was about the only thing that he and Cooter had on their side.

Now that he'd managed to get the trap door open and seen that there was something of a catwalk in the crawl space between the ceiling and the roof of the old building, Luke was having to hold Cooter back from just jumping in. Seemed familiar to be restraining someone this way, and Luke wished it was Bo beside him now instead of Cooter. Then again, he wouldn't have sent Cooter in to find Daisy. His younger cousins had always been close, and Bo would do his best not to let any harm come to her. No one else could be counted on to take as good care of her.

"Shh," Luke reminded the family friend, handing him the flashlight. Using a combination of hand signals and quiet words, he sent Cooter, armed with whatever small tools the mechanic might have in his pockets, down the catwalk in one direction. Luke picked up the other bullhorn and jabbed its handle into his belt, leaving the blowtorch and chainsaw behind, to make his way through the crawlspace heading in the opposite direction from Cooter. After a moment of letting his eyes adjust, Luke realized that there was plenty of light leaking onto the catwalk from the fixtures in the ceiling. If either he or Cooter ran out of catwalk they'd be in pretty big trouble, because the ceiling was obviously nothing but styrofoam panels.

By the time Luke found a vent at the dim end of the catwalk, Cooter's flashlight was completely out of sight. He'd have to take a chance that his friend had also found some kind of exit, because Jesse's horn had stopped sounding a minute or so ago. He couldn't spare a second to think about what that meant for Jesse's safety; he had to keep focus on the mission at hand. One distraction could lead him to blowing whatever chance Daisy and Bo had for freedom.

Pulling the bullhorn from his belt, Luke shifted it to his left hand and toggled the switch to the siren setting, creating an unholy noise within the confines of the crawlspace. At the same moment, he reached out to open the vent with his right hand. No luck, so he put the bullhorn down and tried to force it with both hands. He had to get it open before too many guards made it to the vicinity to check out the noise. Luke's goal was to draw all the attention away from Cooter, but he'd need not to get himself caught in order to keep the guards on the move. So he gave up on opening the vent and just kicked it right out of the ceiling, grabbing hold of the bullhorn before following the debris from the damaged ceiling down to the linoleum floor below.

It wasn't good that there was no one to fight when he landed. The guards were supposed to come looking for the source of this sound. Then again, the dingy area in which Luke found himself wasn't exactly the heart of the prison, obviously. If anything, it looked like an abandoned wing of offices, had a stale old building smell with no circulation to speak of. Might have been untouched since that time Jesse had been teaching them about, when this was the seat of a now nonexistent county. Maybe they were on the wrong floor? Maybe he needed to… never mind, there were the fast footsteps approaching that he'd expected to hear. Everything now was just trying to distract as many people as he could for as long as possible. Holding up the still activated bullhorn, Luke waited for the chasing feet to get close enough that he could see them – two guards. There had to be more in this building, and Luke and his noisy bullhorn were bound to find them.

* * *

What had started as a lone wail somewhere in the distance turned into a more intense siren sound echoing throughout the place. No way to know where it was coming from or what it meant, after all, it wasn't like Kalb had bothered to tell him what the prison alarm system would sound like. Luke and Cooter had to be the cause of the noise, though Bo couldn't tell whether it meant they had already been captured or not. On the off-chance that his oldest cousin was still running free, Bo tried to do what he'd failed, on every level, to do so far: help Luke.

"Jail break, jail break," he called rhythmically, repeating it until some other convicts began to take up the chant. He didn't have anything in his cell to rattle against the bars and make more noise, but it seemed some of the others did. Good. The more racket echoing around the place the better chance Luke would have of getting back out of here, and that was about all Bo dared to hope for – that his cousin would find a way to avoid capture.

"Jail break, jail break," he kept up, practically singing the words that he could now hear bouncing through the old hallways of this building. It hadn't been designed to be a prison, this place, and if Kalb hadn't been so successful at demeaning all the inmates, someone probably would have gotten out before. Then again… maybe the guards were heavily armed. Bo didn't know, he'd only seen the likes of Johnson and Lewis, bearing nothing worse than fists. "Jail break, jailbreak," it was the only hope for Luke, and Bo would still be saying it, even if a gun-wielding guard did show up; even if his own life was in danger. "Jail break, jail break…"

"Bo!" And there was Cooter. Where he'd come from, Bo had no idea, hadn't seen his friend approach. Almost before Bo knew he was there, Cooter was picking at the lock to Bo's cell. It wasn't exactly the standard issue prison lock, maybe more like a bolt lock in a normal door; out of habit, Bo had already looked. The keyhole was smaller than what the Hazzard jail doors had. "Man, you got a loud voice," Cooter was saying.

"Jail break, jail break," Bo kept singing. Then, letting the rest of the place continue the chant without him, "Where's Luke?"

"That bullhorn you hear?" Bullhorn? "That's Luke. Come on," Cooter was saying, swinging open the door to Bo's cell. "Here," he added, handing Bo a couple of small tools, an awl and something else, didn't matter what exactly it was. "Get as many cells open as you can. The more of 'em that are loose, the better chance we'll have of getting back out of here."

And what the heck, he couldn't pick a lock halfway as quick as Cooter, but he could free some men (and women, where was Daisy?). Somehow, despite the many ways in which Bo had screwed it up, Luke's plan was working so far.

* * *

He could hear the ruckus now, around the sound of the screaming bullhorn, and he knew where the convicts were being held. Yeah, sounded like a lot of them were downstairs, and it also sounded like they were managing to get out of their cells, thanks to Cooter's deft lock picking skills. It had been a lot of years since their mechanic friend had been that wild country boy who took great pride in breaking into anything that was sealed in one way or another, just to say he'd done it. Seemed that picking locks was like riding bikes, at least that's what Cooter had told him, trying to calm him down in the diner. _Don't worry Lukas_, in between sips of coffee, _it'll be a cinch_. A cinch -- maybe not, but Cooter at least was having some success.

Luke was on the move, still free for now. But he'd drawn a lot of attention to himself (which was the plan) and he probably didn't have a ton of time left before someone came around a corner too fast for him, weapon drawn, and the game was up.

Until that happened, he ran the hallways, screwdriver in his back pocket. He'd never been particularly good at picking locks, but he was motivated. Cooter would set everyone else free that he possibly could, getting them to run in all directions, with the hope of scattering whatever manpower there was into so many corners that they'd all be able to escape. Luke, he was on a specific mission: find Bo and Daisy and get them the hell out of here. If he got caught in the process, it wouldn't matter, not as long as his cousins got out safely.

Luke turned a corner, probably faster than he should have. Cowboy boots didn't exactly have the kind of heavy tread that the General's tires did, and linoleum wasn't the same as dirt. No friction, and yet somehow he kept his feet, slip and slide, but now running in a new direction, megaphone still screaming in his hand. There was a door at the end of this hallway, and if he could get it open he'd have half a chance, but sprinting towards it like he was, he couldn't tell whether it was locked or not. His pursuers (or at least the ones he knew about) were far enough behind that they wouldn't see where he'd gone if he was fast enough. Reaching for the doorknob (and mercifully, it turned) with his right hand, he dropped the bullhorn out of his left. Swung the door open and kicked Rosco's favorite toy, still screaming full force, down the hallway on the far side of the door. Held the door wide but didn't pass through it. Waited a moment for the guards to get close to turning the corner he'd skidded around, then let go of the door and ran off down a perpendicular corridor. Found himself a recessed doorway, and, breathing hard, peered around the edge to see the blur of movement as three, maybe four men ran through the door, in pursuit of the screaming megaphone. He was alone, for now. Too alone, really, because he'd gotten rid of some guards, but he was no closer to finding his cousins.

Stairs, he needed to find some, and quickly. It wouldn't take long for the guards to realize they'd been tricked (and like a punch line for a tragically unfunny joke, the bullhorn silenced in echo to that thought). Stairs – or some other way to confuse the men that were after him.

Luke started running again, found himself another door to pass through, then another. Had no idea where he was, where the guards were, where Bo and Daisy were… some plan this had been. He was going to get them all locked up, Cooter too, and probably beaten within an inch of their lives.

No time to go thinking like that, where was his discipline? He needed to focus on finding Bo and Daisy, making sense of these halls he was running. They'd entered somewhere around the middle of the roof of this place, he'd crawled… south? South, and Cooter had gone north. Cooter must have landed in an area where cells were, so Luke had to get to the north. He'd run around in… how many circles? Make a left here, then that door there should be… stairs, good. Bounded down them two at a time, no one behind him (he didn't think), pulled the screwdriver out of his pocket in preparation for opening cells or somehow protecting himself from whatever might be at the foot of these stairs, he wasn't sure which.

Didn't matter what he'd thought he would use it for; when he got to the bottom of the flight, he found himself fighting with a locked door. Took a couple of pulls for him to realize that it wasn't going to budge, wasted stupid seconds considering retreat, but he already knew what he'd run into if he went back upstairs. Took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then set to trying to pick the lock.

Which turned out to be the worst decision of his day so far (and considering how long the day had been, what with him not sleeping, and all the dumb things he'd done, that was saying a lot), when the door slammed open at him, striking him in the forehead with plenty of force so that he saw stars, surprised him enough that he fell backwards into a sitting position. Which was exactly where he was when the two guards that had just burst through the door literally stumbled onto him, then hauled him upright.

One of the men pulled a mobile radio from his belt, while the other kept him cornered with a night stick.

"This is Unit C, we got another one," the first guy was huffing into the mic of his radio, (_another one? Did that mean they'd caught Cooter?_) breathing heavily around a larger gut that probably wasn't used to doing quite so much running around.

"10-4, Unit C," came the responding voice, disembodied. Made Luke wonder where the control center was. "Restrain him and get him back into his cell."

Looked like they were mistaking him for belonging in here; the shadows seemed to be working in his favor, keeping even the taller, more capable-seeming guard from recognizing him as an intruder. He took the smallest step back into the darkness under the stairs.

"Come on, prisoner," the first guard said, reaching back to get his own night stick out of his belt. "It'll go easier if you come nicely. Where do you belong?"

Well, there was no answering that, not when being a Duke compelled him to honesty and the truth was that he didn't belong in here at all. So he bluffed.

"I ain't telling." It might get him hit, might not. But it would stall for a minute or two, maybe give him a chance to think of the best way to play through this mess. Now that the initial surprise from the whack on the head had passed, he was starting to calculate again. His chances of getting out were probably nil, but maybe he could be just enough of a distraction to let Bo, Daisy and Cooter find a way out.

Maybe. And maybe he'd utterly failed his cousins. Still, he backed further into his corner, stalling the inevitable, watching the night sticks move in the hands of the guards. Didn't seem like they really wanted to hit him, looked like they weren't all that comfortable wielding weapons at all.

And somewhere in the middle of this jumble of thoughts, he heard a sound that didn't make sense. Came from the wrong angle to be the men in front of him. Glanced up, seeing a fuzzy shape peering over the railing from the steps above. Before he could think or react, there was a blur of movement, a thud, and Bo was landing on the heavy-set guard, knocking the nightstick from his hand. Everything stopped for a second, and then things fell into place in Luke's brain, finally.

Bo took the guy he'd halfway landed on, leaving the stronger-looking one for Luke. Typical. Luke put his arm up against the reflexive swing of the night stick, took a painful hit on the forearm, but he'd protected his face and head. Needed his brain in good working condition so getting hit anywhere near there wouldn't be a good choice. Besides, deflecting the baton that way left the shell-shocked guard's face open for a punch. Took two or three, utlimately, to lay the guy out, but there wasn't all that much resistance along the way.

By the time he was done, so was Bo. His cousin grabbed hold of Luke's hand, pulling him back up the stairs.

"No, not that way, Bo," _because there are all kinds of people up there waiting for us…_

"Come on, Luke," Bo answered between heavy breaths.

His cousin didn't know what was up there (or maybe he did, he'd come from the stairs after all), probably wasn't thinking right, because up was not going to work, couldn't easily get back to the catwalk he'd come in on, maybe couldn't get up there at all without a ladder and they didn't know where one was…

"Trust me," Bo wasted the last of his breath saying, tugging on his hand, and finally Luke gave in and headed up the stairs, got ahead of a wheezing Bo, tried to lead their way out of here.

"This way," Bo said, when they got to the top of the steps, pulling him left when Luke wanted to go right. Tired as Bo obviously was (and he always breathed extra heavily when they'd been running or fighting) his grip on Luke's hand was strong, unwavering. Luke finally stopped trying to run things and let Bo take over. Had to fight down the urge a few times to tell Bo they were going the wrong way, especially when his cousin led them back through places Luke had already been. Was just about to yank Bo back from pulling him down a set of stairs that were probably as much a dead end as the ones he'd been trapped in earlier, when he felt a cool breeze in the otherwise stagnant air of the building. A door out, and somehow Bo had figured their way to freedom.


	10. Kind of Like the Fourth of July

_Hey y'all - sorry I'm late with this. It's been a heckuva week? That's my story and I'm sticking to it._

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Chapter 10 – Kind of Like the Fourth of July

"Wait, Bo!" Luke was saying, and his cousin was every bit as hard to lead in a purposeful direction as Maudine was. They were still in the stairway of the Ooltewah prison, a place Bo didn't want to be, didn't want Luke to be, for even one more second. "Where's Daisy?"

"Cooter's got her. All three of us was on our way out when I came back for you." He tugged on Luke's hand again. He wasn't going to let go until they were away from here and anyone who got in their way was going to learn that if you got one Duke boy, you got them both.

Worked like a charm this time, Luke came easily and took over the lead, which was fine because they were outside in seconds, and Bo had no idea what the plan was, other than to get out of the building. He found himself pulled across an open lot of some kind, seemed a vulnerable place to be if there were guard towers and guns, but by now Bo had a pretty good idea that there weren't. This place hadn't been a modern jail at all, just a good, old fashioned dungeon, where Kalb counted on beatings and demoralization to keep his detainees in line.

Cool night air hit the sweaty palm of his hand when Luke let it go. He had to stomp down the urge to grab on again, wanting to keep Luke close until they were safely back in Hazzard. But his cousin's lean body was already scaling a chain link fence, and he'd need both hands for that.

"You okay enough for this, Bo?" Luke looked like he was going to jump back down. Maybe he planned to give Bo and boost like they'd done a hundred years ago, back when Bo was the smaller one. No need for that; it had been a long night and the adrenalin was wearing off, was all. So he nodded and started climbing after his cousin. Must have been an eight foot fence or something, just tall enough to jar his teeth and reawaken his headache when he dropped next to Luke on the other side. Luke grabbed his hand again, like he'd never dropped it in the first place (might have been the biggest surprise of the night, actually) and pulled Bo through some kind of parking lot, cars everywhere, and Luke was zigging and zagging through them in what felt like a random pattern. Reminded him of playing football with his cousin; Luke was always trying to teach him not to run a straight line.

Then again, this time Luke had been taking them in the straightest line he could have, because all the weaving had led them to the General and apparently they'd been running through the impound lot. Luke nudged Bo toward the passenger side, letting go of his hand again.

"Let me drive, Luke." He was the better driver, even his stubborn cousin had admitted that once or twice. Always took credit for teaching him, though, and that part was only half true. Showing someone how to work the accelerator and the brakes wasn't exactly teaching them how to _drive_. "If we run into trouble…"

Luke dismissed him with a roll of his eyes and another shove.

"I'm driving. You don't look so good." Oh, and that was his cousin, never mincing words. But they didn't have time for an argument, and Luke was an adequate driver himself, so Bo gave in and jumped up onto the doorframe (didn't do terrific things for his head, the jumping) and into the car.

"Let's just hope," Luke was saying as he wiggled his way into the driver's side, another reason Bo should have driven, what with how slow Luke was at getting in on that side, "Cooter's got the gate open, or we might be stuck doing laps in here until we run out of gas." Bo turned the ignition and shook his head at Luke's dark assumptions. Cooter would do his part, and if for some reason he couldn't, Bo and Luke would find another way out. They always did.

Bo sat back and let Luke find his way around the other cars in here, wondered for a moment whether his pessimistic cousin wasn't right about running out of gas in here, simply because there was no clear way out. Finally, though, he saw what Luke was aiming for, the lights on top of Cooter's pickup, the open gate. The General slowed as it passed Cooter's truck, just long enough for Luke to crane his neck, looking, Bo knew, for Daisy. A slender arm reached out the passenger side and waved, and Luke finally drove on past.

"Let 'er rip, Crazy C," Luke was saying. Somewhere in there he'd picked up the CB mic, apparently. Bo had missed that, and maybe it was a good thing he wasn't driving after all. "Where's Shepherd?"

Bo had spun around in his seat, watching behind them for gun-wielding guards or police cruisers. He couldn't see either at the moment, not with Cooter right behind them, still hooked to the chain link fence. Seemed to be bringing the fence, or at least a good-sized chunk of it, along behind him on his towing hook. That sucker threw sparks everywhere, kind of like the Fourth of July.

"Just keep on up this way, Lukas, you'll find him," was Cooter's advice. Hard to imagine that the mechanic could sound so rational when he was dragging such an amazing light show behind him.

Then again, suddenly there started to be a lot of other lights around, red and white, and sirens, too. This was the part where he should have been driving.

"Sit down, Bo," Luke was saying, worrying after him when he should have been accelerating or making evasive maneuvers, maybe jumping over something. Luke took a hand off the wheel, pulling at the back of Bo's jumpsuit, prison issue. It was effective, too. One piece thing like that, Luke tugged and Bo kind of had to move in the direction Luke wanted him to. So he sat down, and turned his eyes to the sideview mirror. Couldn't watch too close, though, not with the way Luke suddenly took off, crossing into oncoming traffic, which was really only a couple of cruisers anyway. Played chicken long enough to get the cops to run themselves off the road, then swerved the General back into their own lane, in front of a slow-moving Cooter, still dragging the fence.

Bo grabbed for the CB. "Drop that thing, wouldja, Crazy-C?" he hollered. The tow truck wasn't the fastest vehicle any of them had ever driven, but it would move a lot quicker if it wasn't dragging a sparking mess of metal wires behind it.

Luke was shoving him back into the seat again, just like Aunt Lavinia used to do when she had to stop short. "He will," Luke informed him. "Just as soon as we're clear of town, and where the hell is Uncle Jesse?"

The two parts of that sentence hardly went together, at least not outside of Luke's head. Bo was sure they'd made perfect sense to his cousin.

Luke was swinging into oncoming traffic again, one last cruiser. This one didn't back off in time and Luke rammed him.

"Luke!" Bo complained on behalf of himself or the poor General, he wasn't sure which.

"That's why I want you sitting," Luke informed him, somehow still reminding Bo of their departed aunt, even as he backed up just enough to disentangle the General from the other car (and yank off the cruiser's bumper with a screech of bending metal).

"I am sitting," Bo groused. "And it's the General that's getting hurt."

"He's just a car, Bo." Just a car, _just a car_? Luke was just about to get an earful about _that_—"You're more important." Oh.

"Hey Lost Sheep, watch up ahead there," Cooter was shouting over the CB, interrupting before Bo could complain about the car or thank Luke for putting him first, whichever way it would have come out of his mouth. The Duke boys didn't need anyone to point out what was ahead to them, though. They knew moonshine running signals when they saw them, a double flash of headlights on-off, on-off, and then nothing. Jesse was up there, maybe half a mile ahead.

Bo was jarred backwards when Luke slammed his foot on the accelerator, got an "I _told_ you to sit down" for that, but it wasn't like he could do anything now, what with the way the momentum of the car had him plastered against the seat. Got a look into the sideview mirror just in time to watch Cooter speed up behind them, and the police cars that had been behind him scatter in all directions around the fence that Cooter had just dropped into their midst. Surprising sound to his left, Luke laughing at the disaster behind them, and why not. Bo giggled too.

Jesse's pickup had started to move in front of them, leading the way off the road and onto a dirt path that Bo had never been on before, but their uncle's driving was confident and quick. Must be an old moonshiner's trail. Only Cooter was behind them now, they'd lost the police. They were safe. Somehow, despite all of his missteps, they'd done it.

"Yee-haw," he hollered, got wild grin from Luke for that. It had been a long time since he'd seen Luke flat out smile like that. Looked good on him.

"Now settle down, Bo," and fun time with Luke was over, just like that. "You're still lookin' kinda puny."

He could have come up with a few choice words for how Luke looked, but Luke looked great, he was free and he wasn't seriously hurt and that was more than Bo had hoped for. So instead of insulting his cousin he lightly socked him on the arm and settled back. He _was_ a bit tired, after all.

For the second time tonight he hadn't fallen asleep but was startled awake all the same, when the motion of the car stopped. Somehow they were back in the parking lot of diner they'd where they'd begun this whole thing earlier today (more like yesterday, he supposed). Luke was bounding across the lot before Bo had even pulled himself halfway out of the car. By the time Bo's feet hit the ground, Jesse was there hugging him tight in his arms.

"You done a fine job, Bo." He'd done a terrible job. Luke was the one who had somehow gotten them out of this mess. But he let Jesse hold him for now, because the old man's arms felt good and safe, and the stink of failure could never follow him here.

His uncle let him go with one hand, looking across the small gravel lot to where Luke was holding onto Daisy.

"You all right, Daisy?" Luke was asking, backing up and looking at the bruises on her cheek in the dim glow of the nearest streetlights.

"I will be," she answered solemnly before turning herself around and letting their fast-moving uncle engulf her in an embrace. Cooter was standing there, toeing the dirt, staying out of the way.

"Cooter, man, thanks for everything," Bo said, because someone needed to. Seemed like everyone else had forgotten he was there.

"Tweren't nothing," their friend answered. "Well, it was, but I figure I came out lookin' a mite better than the rest of you. You look kinda rough there, Bo." Sure, everyone needed to jump on that bandwagon. Apparently, Bo looked bad.

And of course, that brought Luke's scrutiny back upon him. He tried to step back, but Luke grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into the nearest circle of a streetlight, squinting and frowning and touching him here and there, testing for pain.

"What time is it?" Bo asked, half as a distraction, but also because it seemed like maybe the sun ought to be on its way up by now.

"Can't be much past four," Luke said, shrugging. "We started climbing up the building around three, right Cooter?"

Cooter nodded and mumbled some agreement, but Bo wasn't listening. He was looking at Luke.

"You came at three?"

"Yeah, Bo. Now hold still, wouldja?"

So that was why, even though he'd done everything wrong, they had managed to get out of there. Because Luke had come for him early. Before he could think better of it, he grabbed his cousin in a tight hug, a silent thanks being the best he could do, because talking would lead to sappy emotions, and Luke wouldn't put up with that. Held onto his cousin an extra second while he swallowed down whatever tears wanted to come, looked over Luke's shoulder to see Daisy giving him a small smile. She must've decided that he hadn't really betrayed Luke after all, but he had.

The thought was enough to make him let Luke go and take a couple of steps back.

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Bo was worse than his normal unreasonable self, squirming, refusing to let Luke get a good look at him. But even the cursory way he'd been able to check his cousin out, he didn't really like what he saw. Bo was pale, sweaty, tired looking, and there was blood matted into the hair around that little shaved patch on the back of his head. The stitches were probably gone, but Luke couldn't tell because Bo wouldn't let him look.

His cousin was an idiot about these things, refusing to go to the hospital even when he was in terrible pain (which, at least, he didn't seem to be right now) then refusing to stay put and listen to the doctor's advice. (A_nd just who went running out of the hospital with a concussion when Jud was kidnapped? _Maybe Luke didn't always set the best example.) Medical things were more easily handled when Bo got knocked out cold. Awake, Bo was impossible to reason with.

"Bo!" he said, all frustration, because it was hard to check a man's pupils for dilation when he wouldn't look at you.

And then Jesse was there, putting an arm around Bo, telling Luke that he would be fine and that getting him home was the important thing. If anyone else tried telling him that, Luke would have been swinging at them, but this was the man who had raised them. If there was anyone that had a stronger claim than him on taking care of Bo, it was Jesse.

Jesse, who was right then leading his cousin to the pickup, as if Bo was going to ride with him. Seemed that that was what Bo wanted, too, considering he was just getting into that passenger seat over there like he had no plans for going with Luke. And look at that, a long arm was reaching out to welcome Daisy into Jesse's cab, too.

It made sense, really. For all that they were orphans, they were also Jesse's kids. Luke had done plenty of watching over Bo during their lives, but when it came down to it, Jesse was the closest thing they all had to a father. Bo and Daisy had been through – well Luke didn't know what they'd been through, he'd know when Bo stopped wiggling around so much and settled down to telling him. Whatever it was that they'd experienced in that prison, it made sense that they'd turn to Jesse.

Still, he wanted Bo with him.

But, following Jesse's command, he and Cooter got into their vehicles and pointed them towards home. Jesse drove slowly and carefully (and _of course _Luke would have been just as careful if Bo had been in the General with him) so before long Luke was far enough ahead that he couldn't see Jesse anymore. They'd meet up at the farm whenever Jesse got there, and there wasn't anything Luke could do to speed that process up.


	11. His Own Private Guilt War

_Author's note: Well, so much for the action. Now we're well nigh onto the angst._

_I own nothing but the plot, and earn nothing but kind words for what I post here. Thanks for sticking with me!_

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Chapter 11 – His Own Private Guilt War

Now that he wanted to, Bo couldn't sleep. Daisy was warm and safe against him, her head on his shoulder and sleeping heavily, but she had certainly earned her rest. During the first half hour of the trip she'd been cross-examined by Jesse and, well, Bo had fired few questions at her, too. They'd sat her between them, forming a cocoon around her, then started asking her everything.

Bo, apparently, had seen the worst of what had happened to her. There had been nothing, despite the way Lewis had looked at her and then at him, after the torn jumpsuit. Well, nothing more than her getting shoved back to her little cell, an untorn (but not particularly clean) jumpsuit tossed in after her. She was warned to be more careful with this one, followed by a wink from Lewis, but then he was gone. She'd been hit when she first arrived and again when she was in the office with Bo, but not in between.

"It ain't nothing worse than what happened that one time in the Boar's Nest," she had said when Bo turned on the cab's interior light to get a better look at her face. "Remember, that time Luke caught me with his elbow?" And then the look on her face changed, almost like she'd had a brilliant (or maybe awful) realization. "We don't have to tell Luke, do we? About… everything?"

Oh, Bo was sympathetic to that. Luke knowing that someone had hurt one of his younger cousins hardened him down into an angry mass of potential energy, just looking for an immovable object to unleash itself upon. If he learned that someone had threatened Daisy's virtue, there'd be no settling him back down, not until Lewis and Kalb were both flat on their backs with badly bruised jaws. And even that might not be enough to restore a reasonably pleasant demeanor to Luke.

"If'n he asks," Jesse had said in a sigh, "You'll tell him the truth. Both of you. And then I'll handle him. If'n he don't, you don't got to go putting it into his face." Because Jesse _could_ handle Luke, they all knew it. But it would be like handling a rattlesnake, something a body should only do if there wasn't another way out of it. "Most important thing, Daisy-girl, is are you all right?"

She'd wiggled a little in her seat under their uncle's scrutiny; he would have, too. "I am now," she answered, resting her head on the old man's shoulder. Jesse had taken one hand off the steering wheel long enough to grab onto both of hers and give them a squeeze. Soon afterward she'd shifted her weight onto Bo, then fallen into a sound sleep.

"You should rest, too," Jesse was saying over Daisy's head, looking across strands of hair just starting to glow orange in the first of the morning light. "We still got a ways to go."

"Yes, sir," he answered, closing his eyes, because he didn't want Jesse asking him why he couldn't sleep.

And maybe he even drifted off for a bit, the side of his head occasionally rattling against the closed and dingy window of the pickup. He was certainly feeling groggy enough when Cooter's voice came over the CB, cheerful as only a man who had enjoyed being on the winning end of a good fight could be, suggesting a victory round at the Boar's Nest.

"Cooter, you fool," Jesse was chastising quietly, trying to keep from waking Daisy (and Bo, probably, since he hadn't admitted to being awake). "Happy hour will be soon enough. Ain't none of us going drinking at seven in the morning." That last sentence was probably a warning to Luke, because they all knew that neither Duke boy worried a whole lot about what time it was when there was a party to attend.

"Yes, sir, Uncle Jesse," Cooter was answering with that careful respect that the Duke boys had always hated when they were younger. _See how Cooter and Enos don't sass me? You boys ought to be ashamed of the way you talk to your elders..._ Oh, they'd heard that from the time they hit puberty until, well, it hadn't ever really stopped, actually. "That's what I meant." Oh, _sure_ it was.

"Well, then," and Jesse's high pitched tone made it clear he didn't believe that for a second. "Maybe you'd better get on home to bed so's you can have yourself a good time later. And Cooter," here Jesse's voice changed, no longer teaching lessons to young whippersnappers who didn't know any better. "Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome, Uncle Jesse." Bo figured the mechanic needed to put the CB mic down now, so that he could use both hands to polish that halo.

"Thanks, Coot," and that was Luke's tired voice. Made Bo want to crawl under the dashboard, hearing Luke. His legs were too long for that, or maybe his shoulders were too broad – and it didn't matter, because Luke could find him under there, anyway. So he stayed put, kept his eyes closed and felt a lifetime's worth of the pickup's bump and sway as it cruised up Old Mill Road. Felt the moment the pavement under them turned into dirt, and knew it would only be a minute or two before he'd have to face his cousin.

At the familiar vertigo of the swing into their driveway, Bo opened his eyes to see Luke already waiting for them, leaning back against the General's fender, arms across his chest. Looked like he'd been standing there awhile, chewing over the night, not liking the thoughts he was having. Looked like he was waiting there to scrutinize, in the morning light, all the bumps and bruises on Daisy's face that he hadn't been able to see in a dark of the diner parking lot.

Jesse turned the truck off and Luke pushed himself up off the car like he meant it, like there was someone who needed to be taught a lesson, and strutted up to Jesse's pickup like he was expecting a fight.

Their uncle rolled down his window, letting the cool morning into the warm cab with the three of them. "They're asleep," he said, and maybe it was an attempt to keep Luke from coming right at them with all kinds of demands about what they'd been through and whether they were all right.

"I ain't," Bo admitted, because as little as he wanted to face Luke, there really wasn't any way around it.

"You take him, then," Jesse said to Luke. "I got her." Which was the way it always went, whether Bo wanted it to or not (just usually he wanted it to. And right now he should be wanting this, it would keep Luke from asking awkward questions about Daisy. Then again, Bo had some awkward things of his own to tell Luke).

Bo had already opened his door by the time his cousin came around to the passenger side, intent on showing Luke that he was fine and didn't need help. Would have worked better if he hadn't had so many pulled muscles that had stiffened up over the course of the ride, plus that bruise where he'd been kicked in the ribs. A grimace, a groan and Luke's arm was around his waist supporting him, and there was that voice in his ear, the way it sounded when his cousin was holding back, forcing himself to be gentle for Bo's sake. It was like Jesse threatening to tan their hides, something Bo had heard all his life.

"Easy, Bo."

"I'm fine," he mumbled, but Luke just about carried him into the house anyway. Waited, probably drumming his fingers on the wall, while Bo used the bathroom. Tried to talk him into breakfast, but the headache that had been temporarily cured by adrenalin was back in full force now, making him feel like he wouldn't hold anything down if he did try to eat. Brought him into their bedroom instead and dug through the drawers of the dresser between their beds. While Bo was contemplating how to lay down without stretching anything that hurt, suddenly Luke was there, holding out the last of Bo's pain pills from three days (felt more like three years) ago, when he'd first gotten hurt, back when it was okay that Luke cared about him like this. He wanted to refuse the pill, wanted to hurt every bit as much, physically, as he deserved, what with the way he'd betrayed Luke.

"You want water?" Luke was asking. Made sense, must have thought Bo had that good a reason to be hesitating to take a pain pill.

He shook his head, and that wasn't smart, made the throb in there kick up a notch or two.

"Take it, Bo," and there was worry behind that bossy tone of Luke's. So he took the pill, swallowed it dry, a habit he'd started some years back, trying to be grown up like his big cousin. He'd never gotten really good at it, always took him a couple of tries before it would go down, leaving a burning, chalky mess all the way to his stomach.

"Okay?" Bo asked when it was finally down. _Will you leave me alone, now?_ But he wouldn't say that part out loud. Wouldn't work if he did. Not until Luke had checked him over and itemized every scratch and bruise.

"Yeah," Luke answered. It was okay that he'd swallowed the pill, but not okay that he was still standing there; obviously he needed to be lying down. So he moved toward the bed.

"Pajamas, Bo." Like he was a kid, like he had forgotten the normal bedtime routine. They had, both of them, spent plenty of nights in their clothes. This would only have been one more nap in denim, no big deal, but he should have known better. The bruises under his clothes, those had to be poked and prodded, too, probably more than the ones Luke could see outright.

"Luke," he said, because he wanted this to end, the gentle way he was being treated like he was a little kid, like he hadn't just—

Luke was about to feel his forehead. He had that look on him, like he thought Bo had a fever and was trying to do chores anyway.

"We can talk when you're in bed, Bo," his cousin said, not feeling his forehead after all, just pushing blonde bangs back out of his eyes. "Or maybe I should just take you to see Doc?"

It wasn't a threat, if it had been, Bo could have gotten mad or barked out a hard little laugh at Luke's transparency. It was Luke genuinely worrying about him, and that had to stop.

"Just – turn around," Bo said, and Luke's face stretched out with incredulity. They'd only undressed in front of each other all their lives, even when Luke's body started changing before Bo's did, and it should have been awkward (but never had, even though he'd been maturing quickly, it was still _Luke_).

"_Bo_," and Luke was calling him an idiot again. Maybe he deserved it. Everything had worked out fine anyway, Luke had broken into the Sequatchie prison early, no one had gotten seriously hurt, no one was locked up. Maybe those few words that he'd given in and said to Kalb (_Luke'll be here at six_, he'd tattled, like he'd been in the principal's office, answering for some stupid schoolboy prank) weren't important after all.

"All right," he gave in. "Ain't that bad anyways." And Luke's snort indicated just how much he didn't believe _that_. So he let Luke help him unzip the prison jumpsuit, and he wasn't really sorry to be getting out of that anyway. Shrugged it off and got himself into cotton pajama pants before turning to face his cousin. "Okay?" he asked, because this was what Luke wanted, to see that he was all right, to know that whatever injuries he had were superficial.

Luke was wincing. At what, Bo couldn't be sure. Might have been that blackening bruise on the side of his chest, might have been the scrapes and bruises on his wrists.

"Come on, Luke, it ain't anything worse than that time Maudine threw me…" And that incident had been Luke's fault, really, daring Bo to try to ride her, knowing full well that anyone that wasn't Jesse would get a serious what-for for such an offense.

"Back in a second," Luke was saying. "Lie down." And then he was gone, just long enough for Bo to figure out how to get from standing to lying in the fewest, least painful steps, something he hadn't relished doing in front of Luke anyway. His cousin would have tried to help, and on another day that would have been fine, if it had been as simple as Maudine throwing him. But this time it was all twisted up in that thing Bo couldn't think his way around (mostly because his brain kept trying to shut down in self defense against the guilt), where he'd betrayed Luke, but somehow everything had worked out anyway, and did he deserve Luke's concern? Maybe the pain pill was starting to work, making his brain fuzzy.

And then Luke was back, that smelly, bottled remedy of Jesse's in his hand. Old timers called it Cinnamon Balm, but it wasn't nearly as pleasant as the name would suggest, and he and Luke had given it all kinds of other names over the years. Then again, it stunk but it soothed what ailed you, and just opening a bottle could cure every head cold between here and Chickasaw in seconds.

Luke put it on the dresser between their beds, kept the wet rag that he was carrying in his other hand, and sat on the edge of Bo's mattress. He started the inventory at the top of Bo's head (tsk at the torn stitches there, muttering about seeing Doc first thing) using the rag to clean it up. Bo stayed still for that part, self-preservation. Wiggling could mean bashing his head on Luke's hand and that would hurt. But by the time Luke's scrutiny had moved away from his head and down to his ribs, Bo couldn't stand to be still.

"Luke," he tried to interrupt his cousin from his very serious observation of the cuts and bruises on Bo's wrists. Luke had to know what those were, they'd both spent enough times in handcuffs over the course of their lives.

"Bo," Luke answered, matching his tone of frustration. "Settle down, would you? You're as wiggly as a half-starved piglet." Oh, wasn't that brilliant. Luke had found a new way of calling him a pig. Which was just so dang normal, Luke insulting him while making sure he had no broken ribs, that he couldn't help himself. He smiled.

Luke smiled back, a real smile, no sarcasm in it. Bo wanted that smile, wanted to put it away somewhere safe so that he could dig it out and look at it again, some very bad day in the future. Because when he finally got around to telling Luke exactly what had gone down in Kalb's office (but he was so tired now, maybe after he woke up would be soon enough) he didn't expect he'd ever see that smile again. He wanted to touch it, feel the contour of it, commit it to physical memory, but Luke would think he was crazy if he tried.

His hand reached out anyway, touching Luke's forehead and the bruise there that he hadn't really noticed before.

"You okay, Luke?" He really was a heel. He'd been so selfish, worrying about himself and his own injuries, so wrapped up in his own private guilt war, that he hadn't noticed that Luke had some bruises and welts, too. Remembered something about a night stick and Luke's arm, also, the sound of hard wood on bone, Luke's pained grunt following right after.

"It's nothing, Bo," but Luke didn't shake him off like he normally would, just let Bo explore the swelling there, and run a hand over the lump on Luke's forearm as well. "Satisfied?" he asked when Bo finally stopped.

"No," Bo answered honestly. But he was so tired…

Luke smiled again, that same perfect smile that Bo wanted to reach out for. "Of course not," he said, rubbing Jesse's nasty concoction on Bo's bruised ribs. Finished with that and pulled the sheet up, like Bo was little kid and couldn't have done it for himself. "Go to sleep, Bo."

Sleep, yeah, why not. Would need sleep to think clearly enough to confess anyway. And there was no question in his mind, none at all, that Luke wouldn't go anywhere while he slept. He'd be right there when Bo needed him, even if what Bo needed was to confess to doing the low-down dirtiest thing he ever could have: betraying Luke.


	12. Missing All the Signs

_Author's Note: Okay, so this chapter is late, or at least off of my usual schedule. It's not made of cheery holiday stuff, though, so it only seemed fair to wait until most of us are already cranky to go ahead and post it. That and silly things like work demanding my attention._

_I don't own anything Duke, and don't earn anything green. Thanks for sticking with me, even through delays._

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Chapter 12 – Missing All the Signs

The problem with doctors, Luke reflected, was that they couldn't be counted on to say whatever it was you needed them to. When you had things that just had to be done, like during harvest, they were always giving you some nonsense about how you needed to check into the hospital, or stay in bed for a week. And then there was today, when Doc Petticord shook his head and said there wasn't really much point in re-stitching Bo's scalp now, he'd be okay, and it wasn't like a scar up there would matter, not with all that blonde stuff to cover it up. The ribs were just bruised, his wrists, obviously, would heal. There was nothing, really, to worry about. Bo was young and strong and healthy. Which was not the way Luke saw it.

"Don't he need rest?" Luke asked because that was a constant with Doc. Get some rest, no heavy work, don't go plowing the south forty or chasing after those guys that just robbed the bank.

"You both could use some rest," Doc agreed, looking again at the purpling bump in the middle of Luke's forehead. Because of course Bo had pointed out all of Luke's little nicks and scrapes, just trying to distract Doc's attention away from the gash in his own head. Bo had undoubtedly decided Luke was cruel for bringing him here in the first place when he was obviously fine, just fine.

See, doctors noticed all the wrong things. Like Doc focusing on just how sensitive Bo's ribs were to touch, when Luke could have told him right away that they weren't broken. It wasn't Bo's ribs that were the problem; it just might have been his head, that part Luke wasn't sure about. Whatever it was, Bo just wasn't right. He was quiet, like something was paining him below the surface where you couldn't quite see it. He was also somewhat evasive, not quite looking at Luke, like not wanting his cousin to know exactly how badly he was hurt. Doc didn't think there was any reason for continued concern about the concussion, and Luke had to agree that Bo didn't seem to have too many symptoms that would point to that kind of head injury. But Bo was obviously hurting somewhere, and Doc was missing all the signs.

"Get this filled," Doc was saying, handing Bo a prescription. "It's just for a few more light doses of codeine. For the night, because that head's likely to hurt when you're trying to sleep."

Yeah, whatever was wrong with Bo, Luke didn't expect a few pain pills would fix it. Neither, he thought, would sleep. Bo had slept plenty hard this morning, hadn't even known that Enos had come by to check on them, not until Luke had told him later.

A certain sort of good news had come along with Enos' visit: seemed like the Tennessee State Police had been called in to quell a town-engulfing brawl in Ooltewah, and when the smoke had cleared, an official investigation into the nature of the prison there had immediately begun. Apparently Bo, Daisy and the vast majority of those detained had been cleared, since no official charges had ever been filed against them. And it also looked like Sheriff Kalb would be charged with a few crimes, including false imprisonment, before the day was out. Luke had informed Enos in no uncertain terms that Kalb should also be charged with assault and battery, which had led to Jesse reminding him that Enos was a guest in their home and furthermore, wasn't responsible for what had happened to Bo and Daisy. _Settle down, Luke. Don't go killing the messenger._

Which was fine, actually, because he didn't want to kill Enos. He probably didn't even want to kill Kalb, not yet, anyway. After he'd heard everything, he might want to, but not yet. No, what was still nagging at him was how the Robinson brothers had started this mess, a little trick like knocking over the Boar's Nest had turned into Bo getting clobbered on the head, Daisy being imprisoned in that place, and both of his cousins taking more of a beating than Luke wanted to think about. And somehow the guys that had started this whole thing had gotten off scot-free, disappearing into the so-called night without ever having to face any consequences. Those kinds of things just didn't happen here in Hazzard County. Luke and Bo didn't let them.

So he'd been nice about it, told Enos _sorry_ and _much obliged_. Patted him on the back to show he hadn't meant to be so rough (that was what Aunt Lavinia had always called it, anyway: _Luke, why do you have to be so rough all the time? Play nice with the kids that are smaller than you_), then returned to the bedroom to find Bo still out like a light. Hadn't felt any calmer in the bedroom than he had in the kitchen, snapping at Enos, but he'd stayed until Bo woke up anyway. Told him what Enos had said, that Bo was cleared of any wrongdoing and had nothing to worry about. Watched Bo's face as he fought with that information, like there was some kernel of bad news buried in the good. And that just wasn't like his cousin (it was Luke who expected the worst, Bo that laughed at the ridiculousness of that attitude and effortlessly cheered his older cousin up). So Luke had told him to get dressed, that they were going to see Doc, and refused to listen to anything Bo had to say against that idea.

"Ain't no special instructions to give you boys," the old doctor was saying now. "You're both strong as oxes and you'll be just fine in a day or so." The man, for all of his degrees, was a fool. There was obviously something wrong with Bo.

"You want to skip the Boar's Nest?" he asked his cousin, as Bo dragged his feet out of the Doc's office. See, that alone ought to have made the old timer pay attention. When _hadn't_ Bo practically sprinted away from Doc as fast as he could?

Cooter was still expecting them. Jesse would already be there, probably, with Daisy. But there was no reason they had to go, not if Bo didn't want to.

* * *

Oh, it had been tempting to avoid this party altogether, like Luke suggested. His head really didn't much hurt right now, but he was sore in muscles he'd never pulled in all the years of farming, fighting and stupid stunts with Luke. More sleep probably wouldn't hurt him.

But going home would mean Luke taking him there, staying right beside him until he was asleep, then moving to his own bed not three feet away. And that would be followed by waking up next to Luke, getting the normal 'good morning' that they always exchanged (a remnant of a childhood with Aunt Lavinia, who had insisted that each and every member of the family needed to greet each other in the morning, no matter how grumpy they were), immediately followed by Luke asking him how he was.

Daisy seemed to have it right, at least at the moment. She was throwing herself back into the center of the spotlight, as if she'd never left Hazzard, like no one had ever hurt her while she was gone. A lot of makeup concealed the bruises that were still on her cheek, and no one in the room, except the Dukes and Cooter, would have guessed just how miserable she'd been only yesterday.

And in reality, aside from Daisy herself, only Bo knew just how bad she had looked, not simply due to some discolorations on her face, but the way she'd held herself and moved, like someone had taken something from her that she'd never get back. Only went to show just how resilient the girl was, but there was no way, yesterday, when he'd admitted to Kalb that Luke was on his way, that Bo could have foreseen just how easily Daisy would bounce back. If he'd known—

But he hadn't and it really didn't matter. Just like it didn't matter that Kalb's knowledge of Luke's intentions hadn't foiled the plan after all. Try as he might, Bo couldn't see where the end result trumped the middle, where he'd done the one thing he shouldn't have.

"Luke," he said before he could even think. Of course, his cousin was right there beside him, at the corner table where he'd tried to hide from the party, the crowd, himself (but not Luke, there was no getting away from Luke. He worked, ate and slept next to Luke, and how many 'good mornings' could he stand before he blurted out the whole story anyway?). "I need to talk to you."

* * *

Bo should have been in bed, or— something. He looked awful, just not in the way Luke might have expected.

Somewhere when he wasn't looking (really wasn't, because he'd been half a world away at the time) Bo had gotten taller than him. Hadn't grown all the way up or anything, still lost his cool at the drop of a hat. But he'd gotten tall and calmed down a lot, and that look on his face didn't belong on such a big man. It was his little cousin all over again, five years old and heartbroken over being left out of the older boys' pickup baseball game.

"You want to go home, Bo?" he asked, maybe hoping it would be that simple, that Bo wanted to leave and didn't know how to ask. But his cousin's face said worse things than that, even before Bo's mouth could get open to tell him what was wrong.

"No." That was hard to listen to, Bo's voice sounding like he'd screamed himself hoarse when Luke knew he hadn't.

Luke reached for him, no real intentions other than to make contact, since touch always seemed to make him feel better. But his cousin just about jumped backwards, like Luke would conduct a deadly bolt of electricity if he actually managed to get a hand on Bo.

"Don't," he added, in case Luke had missed the message, but it was crystal clear. If Bo had a tail, it would be tucked between his legs right now.

Luke's hands went up in automatic surrender. "Okay." And he was careful, as careful as he could be, not to make any quick moves, just like he generally didn't whenever Jesse was feeling particularly cantankerous. "What are we doing out here?" Out in the Boar's Nest parking lot, around the back where only a few old rusted out junkers stood, cars abandoned back when Bo and Luke were kids, probably, and Boss had never paid the ten dollars it would have taken to haul them away. The door to the bar was just around the corner, just barely far enough away to keep whatever was sliding its way through Bo's mind from being overheard.

"I got something I got to tell you. About what happened in Ooltewah."

It took more effort than plowing a field with a mule to keep Luke from reaching out for his cousin again. Someone had hurt Bo, more than Luke already knew about. Made his cousin shy away from him like this, and when he learned who it was, they'd be spitting out their own teeth after he was done with them.

"When I was first there, in the office, they cuffed me," and so far there was no news in what Bo was saying. "And I'd demanded to see Daisy, so they brought her into the office." Now this was starting to get a little more interesting. "She was already bruised up some and she looked… bad."

"I know," Luke said, because it had been pretty rough on him when he'd first gotten a look at her, too.

"No, you don't know, Luke! You don't know everything…" And there was Bo's temper, an almost refreshing thing after the whipped-pup look that Luke had been getting ever since they'd gotten back to Hazzard. Then Bo sighed and the fuzzy-headed anger was gone, quick as dandelion seeds on an autumn breeze. "She looked… broken. Like they'd," Bo lifted a hand away from his own side and waved it in the air in a non-committal gesture before slapping it back down against his thigh. "Like they'd really hurt her. And they threatened to hurt her more."

It was cruel to watch Bo suffering like this and not be able to touch him. His kid cousin wasn't the kind to tolerate pain alone. After a whipping from Jesse, he'd always gone willingly into their uncle's arms to be forgiven and soothed, and then to find Luke and stand too close to him until the memory of the strap had faded and the kid was ready smile again.

"All right." If he couldn't touch his cousin, words were all he could offer. They weren't enough or weren't right, he could read that in the way Bo's face scrunched up, eyebrows down, eyes closed, lower lip pressing up against the top one.

"No it ain't all right," Bo answered, not opening his eyes. "Kalb guessed you was going to be coming after us, Luke. He kept asking me when to expect you, and… threatening Daisy…" Bo opened his eyes, finally, looking straight at Luke. Must be the bad part coming; Jesse always said you had to look each other in the eyes when you had something important to say to them. "I told him, Luke. They was…" Bo's voice had escalated before it stopped, before his hand came up in an even more abrupt gesture than before, before he swiped it across his face like wiping away sweat, then slapped it down on his own leg again, like punishing himself. "They was gonna hurt Daisy," and the fight Bo was having with himself was too painful to just stand back and watch, so Luke stepped forward. "I told them… I said six." The last few words were a whisper, but Luke heard them anyway, close as he was, his hands on Bo's shoulders and his cousin didn't back away from him this time.

"It's okay, Bo," he assured his cousin. He wanted to laugh because it really was all right, Bo had worried so hard about something that he hadn't, actually, done wrong. Luke settled for a smile instead, small one. "I knew you would."

"What?" Bo stepped back again, eyebrows down, but eyes wide open this time. "You what?"

"It's okay," Luke said again, his hands coming down from Bo's shoulders to be crossed over his own chest. He leaned back on one of the rusty old cars, relaxing into a lifelong habit of explaining to Bo the inner workings of one of his plans. "It's one of the oldest tricks in the military. Make sure your opponent gets bad intelligence. We was always gonna break in there at three, not six."

Bo's mouth was wide open, like he was gasping for air after having been underwater for too long, his eyes squinting down and looking as hard as they ever did in the middle of a fight. The muscles in Bo's shoulders tightened, and his right arm came up, finger pointing all the way.

"Luke!" And he felt his own body responding like a reflex. The man across from you pointed his finger in anger, and you stood your ground, maybe even punched him if he deserved it. "You set me up to… I thought I'd—I betrayed you, it was the worst thing I'd ever done, worse than with Diane and the carnival."

"It wasn't nothing like with Diane, Bo," he said through clenched teeth, in part because Bo's sudden anger was itching under his skin, begging for an equal response. Then again, that thing with Diane, it could still make him mad, the way Bo hadn't listened to or trusted him.

"No, it wasn't," Bo agreed, but the yelling he was doing, that finger still leveled at Luke, wasn't exactly friendly. "Diane was… a mistake. This, you did on purpose. You sent me in there to fail."

"I sent you in there because you wanted me to, Bo. I tried to go myself, but you kept insisting you could do it." Every muscle in Luke's body was tightening up in frustration at Bo's… simplemindedness about this. It was a plan, a scheme like a hundred schemes they'd pulled. Bo getting mad about a plan now, after it had gone off like clockwork, was just -- rookie foolishness. And Bo wasn't exactly a rookie anymore.

"Just one little thing, Luke. You forgot to tell me the whole plan." Sarcasm and Bo just didn't work together. It took control to deliver a really cutting sentence, and right now Bo didn't have hardly any control at all.

"If you knew the whole plan, it wouldn't have worked. Shoot, half of the time you don't know the whole plan."

"Yeah, well, you ain't never given me a reason to worry about what the whole plan was until now. But I ain't— I don't know how you could do this." Somewhere in there, Bo's finger had unpointed itself, gotten out of the way so Bo could come chest to chest with him.

"Do what, Bo? Save Daisy? Y'all always expect me to…" His hands were disobedient, moving out of that careful cross-armed stance, as if he might hit Bo (and he wouldn't, Bo was hurt, so what exactly were his hands thinking?). "...Come up with something that'll save the day. So I did, and this is the thanks I get?"

Bo's eyes stopped squinting now, popping wide enough to reveal the full circumference of bloodshot white around the dark blue.

"You want me to thank you for… expecting the _worst_ of me?"

"Oh, Bo, it ain't like that." And it really wasn't. Kalb had held all the cards. There was no way Bo could have done anything different. "If you'd known we was coming at three, would you have been able to keep it to yourself? Tell the truth: Kalb still would have gotten it out of you, wouldn't he?" It was just logic. Sometimes Bo could make the simplest things three times harder than they had to be.

"Yeah, Luke, I would have all right?" Bo was too tall. Luke had to tip his head back to maintain eye contact, and oh no, he was not going to be the first one to look away from this argument. "Does that make you happy to know? Your stupid little cousin would have screwed up, even if he had known the _real_ plan—"

"No, it don't make me happy. No—"

"So I'm weak or I'm a coward, whatever you want to call me, and that's _fine_, Luke. I'm all those things, but I never would have done this to you. I wouldn't have sent you in there to…" Bo was backing up, off of Luke's chest now. There was no accounting for how cold he felt without Bo's warm body that close to him. "You're my cousin, my blood…" That hoarse sound was back in Bo's voice, back where they'd started this thing. "Never mind."

His cousin turned around and walked back to the door of the Boar's Nest, shaking his hanging head like what had just happened could be shooed away as easily as a pesky fly, and leaving Luke behind to kick at the long-ago deflated tires of the cars around him.


	13. Not Just Tired

_Hey y'all -- Happy New Year!_

_As always, I don't own 'em, don't earn from 'em, hope you enjoy reading about 'em!_

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Chapter 13 – Not Just Tired

"You ain't just tired," his uncle was accusing, with all the gentleness in the world. It was very clever, the way Jesse could lull his kids into a false sense of security by being all calm and sweet like this, and then, somehow, the lurking lecture would come out of left field. Then again, it hadn't been a question. Maybe he could get away without answering it.

"Bo?" Or not.

"No, sir." Tired was definitely _one_ of the things he was, though. Exhaustion had hit him like the heat of midday in August, right in the middle of arguing with Luke. He was too tired to bother explaining to his cousin exactly where the flaws were in what Luke'd done. Because as obvious as it would have been to any judge (even Boss Hogg, slimy schemer that he was), or a jury of his peers, Luke would never admit to being wrong. "I ain't just tired."

"Your head hurt?" And here came that calloused old hand, checking for fever or maybe cracks in his skull.

"A little." Hurt some; his heart hurt more. But he wasn't going to admit to that right now, riding along the old dirt road from town to the farm.

He'd stormed into the Boar's Nest, not looking at anyone, slipping quickly into the privacy of the bathroom. He'd cleaned himself up from the fight he and Luke hadn't quite gotten around to. Instead of washing parking lot dirt off his face it had been more like wiping the redness from his eyes. Did his best with that, then back out to where Jesse had been sitting, playing checkers with Sunshine. His uncle hadn't exactly looked surprised to see him.

"Can I borrow the pickup?" he'd asked, not bothering to greet any of his uncle's friends. He'd get lectured later, but right now he didn't want to spend any more time here in the roadhouse than he had to.

"What fer?" Jesse had asked. It was habit, ritual. Because lending a vehicle to Bo Duke without finding out what he planned to do with it was just foolishness.

"I just want to go home," he explained. _And please don't ask why I don't want to have Luke drive me, and why I don't just use the General_. "I'm tired."

"I'll take you," Jesse said, excusing himself from the checker game faster than Bo could protest that he didn't need a ride, just a vehicle.

Somewhere in there, Luke had come back into the bar and was at that corner table again, watching the place with his suspicious eyes. No wonder his cousin always expected the worst. Luke probably set all kinds of bad things in motion, just so he could say he always knew they would happen.

Jesse had waved in Luke's direction, a silent goodbye in that. Bo hadn't hung around to see what his cousin's reaction would be to them leaving. He'd just gone out and gotten into the passenger side of the pickup and a minute later Jesse had joined him. They weren't far down the road when the questions had started.

"What was you and Luke doing when you went outside?"

Of course Jesse had noticed them leaving. The man had a sixth sense about when his boys were up to no good. Mostly.

"Talking." There was no way that Jesse was going to get him to tattle the details, though. For all that Luke thought his little brat of a cousin couldn't keep his big mouth shut, Bo was not the kind to go ratting on anyone, even as mad as he was at Luke.

"All right," Jesse answered, no indication that he'd even intended to ask anything more. Which only meant that he'd come back later for details, because Jesse Duke just didn't give up on getting to the bottom of whatever things he felt needed to be gotten to the bottom of.

But they made it home without any further discussion, and it was probably only fifty feet from where Jesse'd parked to Bo's bed. It wasn't quite a straight shot, but it wouldn't take half a minute to get there.

"Bo," his uncle called from behind him as he tried to pass through the kitchen without stopping. "Sit." Oh, here it came.

"I—" he tried.

"Now." So he sat. "You ain't going to bed without putting something on that stomach of yours. Soup'll only take a minute to heat up." Jesse's head was already in the refrigerator. There would be no escaping the soup. "While you're waiting, I want you to take one of them pain pills. Now." In case Bo got feisty again.

The pain pill wouldn't fix what was hurting him, but it might just let him sleep a little bit. So he didn't fight it, just swallowed it and even chased it down with the glass of milk that Jesse plopped in front of him. No point in dry-swallowing it just to be like Luke. He didn't want to be anything like his scheming older cousin, anyway.

* * *

He wasn't worried about Bo at all. It wasn't like Jesse wouldn't look after him. Besides, Daisy was still here and he couldn't leave her alone. Not that he wanted to, anyway. This was a party to celebrate Daisy's freedom and she was still here, enjoying herself, so he should be, too. A beer and a few good friends were all he needed to have a good time (and not think about Bo, not even for a minute).

Because Bo wasn't making any sense. There had never been any question in any of their minds that both Bo and Luke would do whatever it took to keep Daisy safe. Which was exactly what they'd both done, and here she was, back in Hazzard, teasing Rosco and watching him blush, then turning her attentions on Enos. Whatever had happened in that office of Kalb's (and Luke would need get down to the bottom of that, sometime soon) was a past she seemed perfectly willing to walk away from. Why Bo had to go revisiting it, Luke would never know. But he wouldn't let it ruin his night.

"Hey, buddyroe!" And see there, he'd been so absorbed in enjoying himself that he hadn't noticed Cooter helping himself to the empty chair across from him. "Where's Bo?"

Luke picked up his beer, then spoke over the lip of the mug, "Home, I guess. Jesse took him." Swallowed a big mouthful.

"He okay?"

Luke shrugged. "Jesse'll take care of him."

Cooter's eyes bulged to show what he thought of that. The man really needed a more subtle way to express his emotions. One of these days those eyes might just pop right out of his head. And what did Cooter have to look so surprised about anyway? Jesse had raised the Duke cousins and half of Hazzard as well, and there was no reason he couldn't take fine care of Bo.

"Cooter," he interrupted, before his friend could even ask whatever questions were rattling around in that crazy brain of his. "I'm gonna get me another," he added, gulping down the last of his beer so the statement would make sense. "You want one?"

"Naw," Cooter answered. "I still got me plenty." Yeah, Luke had too, a minute ago.

Up at the bar, trying to get the attention of the other waitress (and it was a shame, because she wasn't unattractive, just shy, but if you worked with Daisy Duke you were fated to be _the other waitress_ for as long as you kept the job), Luke jumped when a warm arm came around his waist.

"Sugar," Daisy was saying, "How come Bo and Jesse left, but you're still here?"

"I'm staying with you," which wasn't really an answer to the question, and the amusement in Daisy's eyes proved that.

"For someone that's with me, you been spending a lot of time in the corner. Oh, hush," she added, swatting him on the arm and stopping the denial before it could even come out of his mouth. "Take me home, then."

"What? No, Daisy, you're having a good time…"

"But you ain't," she added pointedly. "Besides, Luke," she jumped in again, "I'm tired and I'm worried about Bo." _And you should be, too_, she didn't add, but he heard it just like she had.

"All right," he agreed, giving up on the beer he'd never gotten hold of anyway.

Over the roar of the General's engine Daisy broke the silence that had followed them out of the Boar's Nest and halfway home. "Luke, I want to thank you for coming up to get me in Ooltewah."

"Shoot, Daisy, if I had to do it all over again tomorrow, I would." And that was the truth. Him and Bo, both, would do anything for her, especially when her getting arrested happened because she was trying to help them. Daisy was the only innocent in everything that had happened.

"I know. Thanks," and she squeezed his shoulder, almost hurt because of the way he'd been tensing it ever since arguing with Bo.

"They hurt you in there? More than your face?"

"No, not really. They just threatened to. I'm fine." Her hand was gone from his shoulder and she was facing front again.

"I'm glad," he said, squinting into the setting sun to find the entrance to their driveway.

Daisy pulled herself out of the passenger window before he could get around to that side to help her, which was as normal as it got. Seemed like she'd be fine, the way she bounced up onto the porch and into the house with out even looking back at him.

Which made it easier for him not to follow her. He sat himself down on the porch steps and watched the sun fade, smelled the sweet moisture of early dew, and waited. Because it was only a matter of time.

A lot of time, it turned out, but his patience was rewarded (or not, this wasn't likely to be anything but a lecture) when Jesse stepped out onto the old boards and stayed there quietly behind him.

"I don't reckon," his uncle was saying over Luke's head, "You really like getting et alive by mosquitoes all that much." The floorboards creaked as Jesse made his way closer. "You want to talk about it?"

Oh, it was just like Jesse to pretend Luke had a choice. It was spill it now or get it wheedled out later.

"I'm sure Bo's already told you what a low-down-in-the-gutter snake I am." Oh, that was just bitter.

"No," Jesse corrected, coming down the stairs to stand in front of him. No way to avoid those penetrating eyes now. "He ain't. But if'n you tell me you's a snake, I'll believe you."

"Oh, Jesse, I ain't a snake. Bo just thinks I am, but he ain't thinking about things right."

"Well," Jesse answered, and it sounded just so neutral and reasonable. "Maybe you ought tell me just what it is he's got all wrong."

"Bo just don't understand strategy is all." Maybe Jesse was right about the bugs; seemed like they were biting him now. He folded his arms tight across his chest. "Or at least not military strategy." Because Bo knew racing strategy like most men knew baseball statistics.

"Ain't no reason he should know it," Jesse agreed. "Sometimes he might think that what we got between us and J.D. and Rosco is a war, but you and me know it ain't. Not like a real war." Jesse fiddled with the bib of his overalls, pulled out the pocket watch he always kept in there and looked at it as though it wasn't too dark to see what time it was. "So. You want to tell me what strategy Bo don't understand?"

No, he didn't want to, but he'd do it anyway.

"It was for Daisy," he said, just to remind Jesse of that right up front. Because that was the most important part of grasping the rest of it. "And Bo just don't understand that sometimes you got to make sacrifices."

"Oh he don't, don't he?" And that wasn't a good sound, the way Jesse's tone went up in there, that little crack in it like his voice had never stopped changing, at least not when he was riled. It was too early in the conversation for Jesse to talk like that. "I suppose he went in there and got himself arrested and smacked around like he did just because it was fun?"

"Not that kind of sacrifice." And how many people were going to put that in his face, that Bo had been the one who had dealt with Kalb's cruelty head on, when Luke had offered to go instead, not once, but a few times? Then again, the look on Jesse face indicated that this wasn't a time to complain about such things. "Oh, I know him going in there was a sacrifice and it was brave, okay? I ain't sayin' it wasn't."

"Luke, maybe you'd better just tell me straight what's bothering him, and none of this beating around the bush you're doing."

So he nodded and did as he was told. "Before I sent Bo into Kalb's office I told him we was going to break in to get him and Daisy at six in the mornin', and to be sure not to tell anyone that."

"Six? Don't you mean three?"

"No, Jesse." It came out all frustrated, and that wasn't smart. That was the tone of voice that got him whipped just about weekly, back when he'd been short enough to have to look up over his uncle's mound of a stomach to see those dark eyes. "I mean six. I told him six so he'd tell that to Kalb, then we could surprise them all by coming in at three. And it worked, too," because everyone seemed to be forgetting that part.

"So, let me get this straight," Jesse said, and the hand gestures began. It was never good when Jesse started linking his fingers together like that, meant the beginning of a lesson about how Dukes were close and all they had was the love of family. "You told Bo _not_ to tell Kalb we was coming in at six."

"Ri—"

"And!" Because Jesse wasn't done and it just wasn't wise to interrupt him, even if it was to agree with him. "You did that, made him think you wanted him to keep that secret for you, when what you really wanted was for him to turn around and tell it to Kalb?"

"Well, yeah, Jesse, but it ain't that simple."

"Well, I sure hope not!" the old man snapped. "Because what you're saying here ain't how I raised you boys."

"You raised us to protect Daisy no matter what!" He was starting to get the kind of angry that made him lose control, and that would only lead to bad things. That was temper, and temper was something Uncle Jesse didn't tolerate. "And Bo would do anything to keep her safe, even if it meant telling Kalb when he thought we was coming! It was a choice, Jesse, Daisy or me, and he chose Daisy, just like he was supposed to!"

Jesse nodded at that, like he was considering it, but Luke knew better. It was that thing Jesse did right before he really let you have it.

"Did you ever think," and the tone of Jesse's voice was quiet, too quiet. "What it would feel like for him, having to choose between the two of you like that? How much it would hurt him inside to have to protect Daisy by betraying you?"

"No, I didn't think that!" That kind of thinking wasn't smart, really, it just got in the way of strategizing. "I thought about how to get Daisy out safely, and that's all I thought about! You — all of you — look to me to plan these things, and then when I do, you complain about how I did it. Did you have a better plan?" Luke was standing, didn't remember how he got that way, but standing was good, let him walk away, not far, just enough to put some distance between him and this argument, try to swallow down some of his anger before this thing got ugly.

"No," Jesse informed his back, since Luke wasn't facing him anymore. "I didn't. I also didn't check to see what your plan was, and that was a mistake. You're right, we's always trusting you to come up with something, and maybe we shouldn't."

Was that a— was Jesse saying they shouldn't trust him? After all those times he'd— Luke looked back over his shoulder, getting ready to say a few more things about the sacrifices _he'd_ made.

"Because the one thing you seem to have forgotten, Luke," and it was sad, the look on his uncle's face, the tired way in which he said the words. "Is that Bo is always on your side. There ain't no place else he ever wants to be. You just don't go using him like that. He ain't _collateral_. He's your cousin."

"He's my cousin and so is Daisy, and we all protect her. That's the way it works, Uncle Jesse, you say it yourself all the time. _Look out for Daisy_. So me and him, we both got to make sacrifices to take care of her."

"She makes sacrifices for you, too. She works hard in the bar then comes home and works more. But what she don't sacrifice, what she would never think to sacrifice, is your faith in her. Luke, you and Bo and Daisy is family. Some day I ain't going to be here any more, and all you're going to have is each other. What good is that if you can't trust each other? Bo needs to trust you with everything in him, and maybe more important, needs to feel like you trust him back just as much."

It wasn't that he didn't trust Bo, he trusted him completely. He'd sent him into the Sequatchie County prison fully trusting that Bo would spill the beans.

"I ain't sorry," he said instead. "It worked."

Jesse just sighed at that, the same kind of sigh Luke'd heard when he'd announced to the old man that he was joining the service. _I'm too old to spend my days arguing with the stubborn likes of you_, the sigh said. _You've made your bed…_

"All right, Luke, you ain't sorry, and I can't make you be. But you ain't to go into that bedroom with Bo until you _are_ ready to be sorry."

And that was just fine with Luke. He stalked off to the barn where at least he figured Maudine might be happy to see him.


	14. No Mood to be Waking Up In

**Chapter 14 – No Mood to be Waking Up In**

Pain pills had their uses, but waking up with any kind of clarity of thought was not one of them. Peeling his tongue off the roof of his mouth, which had grown just as fuzzy as his brain, Bo fought with the sheets until he was sitting. Rubbed his hands on his face a few times, maybe to wake up his eyes, which were open but still kind of useless, too tired to focus. Still, he knew without trying to look in that direction, Luke hadn't slept here last night. Knew it because there was no way Bo had awoken first, and no way Luke would have left silently. But more than either of those things, he simply hadn't _felt_ Luke in the night, something in the rhythm of Luke's breath or the way he turned over just about every two hours was ingrained in Bo's own sleeping pattern, and though the codeine had made him sleep deeply, he hadn't slept right, not without Luke being there.

He'd gotten over it after awhile, when Luke had been in the military, that habit of sleeping well only when his cousin was in the bed next to his. Hadn't been all that hard (_it had only taken everything in him_) and maybe he'd need to relearn that little skill. Since it seemed that Luke didn't think enough of him to even stay in the same room with him last night.

And here he'd been so worried about what he would say to Luke, how he could face him first thing each day, say good morning and mean it, but it turned out the point was moot. Luke couldn't be bothered to sleep next to him anymore.

This wasn't any kind of mood to be waking up in. And it hadn't improved by the time he was dressed and clean enough to be making his way into the kitchen. Only Jesse was sitting there, cup of coffee in front of him, and newspaper off to the side, like he hadn't even started it yet. No Luke and no Daisy. The old man met his eyes as he came in, like he was studying on him, deciding whether he looked good enough to be up.

"Mornin'," Jesse finally settled on saying. "You're up earlier'n I thought you'd be. Sleep all right?"

Now there was a loaded question.

"I suppose," he answered. It was easier than explaining things he didn't even want to think too hard about.

Jesse put his heavy old hands on the table to push himself up to standing. "Well then you just have a seat and I'll rustle you up some breakfast."

Reaching down for his boots by the door, Bo turned and spoke over his own shoulder. "I'll go collect some eggs, then." Looked like one of those mornings you couldn't quite trust out there, orange start to it like the horizon was on fire, but that could turn to rain in an hour.

"Sit, boy," Jesse reprimanded. "Luke done already collected the eggs. You need to have breakfast first, and we'll just see how you feel before you start workin'."

The _yes, sir_ ought to have been automatic, and on any other day it might have been.

"Oh, so _Saint _Luke done all the chores already, huh?" It was like he was twelve again, that was probably the last time he'd called his cousin that. It came from following behind Luke all his life, hearing all the great things the older boy was, better student than Bo, better behaved, played a better game of football, did more chores. Half the time it seemed like Luke did it just to make Bo look bad (and the other half the time Bo felt guilty for even thinking like that).

Uncle Jesse's reaction didn't do anything to make him feel more like an adult, either.

"Simmer down boy, or I'll have you bent over a hay bale before you can count to three."

"Yes, sir." Would have been much more efficient to have just said that in the first place. Now he was about to get an earful. The way Jesse was standing over him, it was clear that any thought of breakfast was in the past.

"Now, Luke told me why you's upset, and I can't say as I blame you. You got a good enough reason to be mad. But," oh, there was always a but, Bo couldn't just be right. "He had his reasons. Oh, I ain't saying they was any good." Funny, Uncle Jesse must have read his mind. "Just that right now, Luke can't see around them reasons very well."

"There ain't nothing to see around." Oh, he hated how his voice betrayed him at times like this, cracking in all the wrong places. "He figured I couldn't keep a secret and he was right about that, I guess. But I wouldn't have done the same to him as he did to me."

"No, Bo, I don't believe you would." The old man laid a hand on his shoulder, like he used to back when Bo had popped up for the last out of a losing baseball game. _Buck up, boy, I love you anyway_. "Then again, I don't reckon you'd come up with a plan at all. You're way too used to Luke doing that for the both of you."

Bo looked up at his uncle; it wasn't fair that he'd been lulled into thinking Jesse agreed with him only to get the lecture after all.

"Oh, now, I ain't saying he's right, mind. I'm just saying you might not be as right as you think. You boys have a bad habit of taking each other for granted; maybe you done it one too many times."

Bo started to fiddle with the salt shaker; he couldn't help himself. The tone of Jesse's voice was always so wise and it seemed like the words ought to make sense, but this time they just didn't. Luke had— he'd trusted Luke all his life. He always thought that went both ways, but now—

He dropped the salt shaker on the table and stood up.

"Maybe I need some more sleep after all," he mumbled, trying to move away from his uncle, to get out of the room as fast as he could. Jesse's grip slipped down from Bo's shoulder to his wrist, but the old man didn't let go.

"Bo," he said, and he had no plans to turn around and face his uncle. A tug on his arm, and Bo turned in spite of himself. "I love you, boy. And so does Luke." So he gave in and let his uncle hug him, even if he was too big to need such a thing anymore.

* * *

Milking goats was always such a pleasure when he had a sore back. A cow would have been better, not by much, but better. Goats were just too dang low to the ground.

And the porch was a poor choice of sleeping locations. Jesse hadn't banned him from the house, just the bedroom, but he was danged if he was going to sleep on the couch. Which made a certain amount of logical sense to his pride, enough sense that he'd gone and dug his sleeping bag out of the General's trunk and set up camp on the porch. Some time around three in the morning, though, the logic had drained right out of it in the hard feel of floorboards underneath his backside. Somewhere, he was sure, Aunt Lavinia was laughing at him still being just as stubborn as the day (and night) was long.

Maybe it had been a form of protest, sleeping outside. Some childish remnant inside of his head stamping its little foot and saying _you don't love me_ followed by _I'm going to run away from home_. But he was too old to actually run away, smart enough to know he had no place else to go. So what little sleeping he'd done had been on the porch, and _that_ certainly showed_ them_.

He sat the on the old boards for a little while, sleeping bag pulled up over his shoulders against the early morning chill, and thinking his bitter thoughts. Considered getting some coffee, but that would mean going inside, and as much as his little protest out here was obviously pointless, he wasn't willing to give it up. So he threw the sleeping bag back and faced the bracing air, stood right up into the cold, found his boots and headed off to the barn. Might have been wiser to sleep in there, except for the smell. It had been too long since someone cleaned that place out, and now was as good a time as any.

He'd gotten as far as feeding Maudine and cleaning her stall, then milking the goats, when Jesse showed up with a cup of coffee. Couldn't have been five yet, and here was his uncle, who should be sleeping, coming out to take care of him.

"Morning," the old man greeted. "It's a mite chilly, yet. You want your jacket?"

"No sir," he answered, and by then it was true, he'd worked up a pretty good sweat out here. He moved to the next goat and was about to start milking her, when he felt a warm hand on his back.

"Come drink your coffee, Luke."

He wanted to refuse the kindness; accepting meant letting his righteous anger crumble into so much useless dust. But it was too early for Jesse to be up, much less making coffee and bringing it to him, so when it came right down to it, he didn't have the heart to turn it down.

So he stepped out of the goat pen and accepted the still steaming drink, which probably spoke more to the dankness of the morning than the temperature of the coffee. Almost in a fluid motion with passing him the mug, Jesse took hold of Luke's elbow, leading him to the little bench that the old man sometimes used when tending to Maudine's hooves. It was hardly big enough for one of them to sit on, but Jesse made clear that he expected them both to squeeze onto it right now.

"Luke," his uncle said, after he'd managed to swallow half the coffee in one go. The faster he drank it, the sooner he could be back at work and away from sitting here elbow to elbow with the man that had raised him. "Ain't nothing going to make me stop loving you."

He was supposed to say something back into this silence, maybe _I love you, too_ or _I'm sorry_, because that was how these kinds of things worked, but neither set of words was ready to come out of his mouth just now.

"And I think maybe you got a point. We do look to you to solve a lot of things." Luke was watching the goats, who were watching him right back. Would be easier to justify staring at them if they'd do something interesting. "Then again, if'n we stopped doing that, I don't reckon you'd like that any better." And now he was counting the goats. One-two-three-four. "Luke…"

_Look at me, boy. _So he did. Because there was no way around it.

"I reckon you made a mistake this time. Lord knows I've made enough of them, and I didn't always recognize them for what they was, not 'til a lot later. But they was mistakes all the same. And your grandmother, rest her soul, always told me that when the time came that you could see clearly about what you'd done, well, you could make it straight with whoever you'd wronged then, and the good Lord would forgive you. But her, she always forgave me right away."

Back to the goats. Four goats had eight eyes. All staring right back at him.

"So, I forgive you, Luke, even though you don't think there's anything I need to forgive you for." Eight eyes and eight ears, and why did Jesse think he wanted to hear that he was forgiven right now anyway? "And I love you. So does Bo." Sixteen legs, and sixteen hooves. He stood up, put a few feet between himself and his uncle.

"Was there anything else you wanted to tell me, Jesse?"

A sigh, full of the weight of raising such foolish children, was the first answer to that question.

"No, Luke, I don't reckon there is, not right now." _Not so long as you're too stubborn to make things right with Bo._

The goats beckoned (oh, not really, but they didn't exactly run away, either), so Luke handed his empty mug to Jesse, and headed back for them.

"Except." Right. There was always an _except_ in there somewhere. "I think maybe you done enough work for one day. What you need is to do some thinking, and as long as you're out here working, you ain't doing any. So— go off someplace quiet and think things through." As if it hadn't been Luke's thinking that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

"All right," he answered, taking his place under the goat he'd walked away from a few minutes ago. "There's just a few things I want to finish first, then I'll go." He didn't have to run away from home, Jesse was sending him. "Can I borrow the pickup?" Because he didn't want to take the General, and he didn't even want to think about why that was.

The old man's clothes rustled, must be standing up to leave. Luke's concentration on the teat in front of him was exactly as intense as it needed to be in order to keep him from turning around and facing his uncle again.

"I'll leave the keys in the ignition," Jesse said.

"I'll leave the eggs on the porch," Luke answered.


	15. Fool's Gold

_Hey y'all -- thanks for sticking with this one._

_Touch of trivia: The second scene in this chapter was inspired by a visit to Turner Lake in Covington, Geogia, back in August (which tells you how long ago I was working on this part!). Covington seems to have become a regular stop for me on long road trips -- often enough it's between where I am and where I'm going._

_I don't own the Dukes and don't earn anything for what I write about them._

* * *

**Chapter 15 – Fool's Gold**

It wasn't enough, apparently, that Luke knew he would give in and tell Sheriff Kalb that the break in to the prison in Ooltewah was scheduled for six. He'd also gone and done all the chores that needed doing, probably conspired with Jesse to make sure there was no work left for Bo to do except walk the crop line, stewing over what a jerk Luke was.

Oh, that wasn't entirely fair. Growing up with Luke Duke had been— well mostly it had been a game of catch up. Luke had been four years bigger, stronger and smarter, for their entire childhood, and then he had been gone. Just when Bo was hitting his first major growth spurt, just learning to play football worth a damn, Luke had gone off and joined the Marines. Always three steps ahead of him, Luke was, becoming a war hero just when Bo was finally starting to make his own name in Hazzard High. Then again, what was it that girl Mary Ellen had told him back then? Something about how she'd only gone out with Bo because she'd assumed he was as brave and honorable a _man_ as his cousin, but he'd turned out to be just as immature as all the other high school _boys_.

Then there was the other side to it all, the way Luke helped Bo figure out the best way to make his smaller body work to his advantage while he was waiting for it to grow, and semi-patiently worked with him on word problems in math (that was, until it was time for his big cousin to go meet up with his girl-of-the-night). Luke wasn't anything like a mother would have been; he had let Bo stumble and fall. Bumps and bruises didn't faze him much, like they did Daisy. But if something really hurt Bo, by accident or on purpose, Luke would be there in seconds to make that thing pay. And then to pick Bo up gentle as the older boy could manage, (which was kind of like a mama cat grabbing its kitten by the scruff, all pull and tug but with the intention of protective concern) and take care of him.

And maybe that was a good thing, back then. But Bo was an adult now, and a few knocks in a barroom brawl or at the hands of a half-crazy old sheriff wouldn't keep him from doing his share of the work around the farm. Not unless his big cousin thought Bo was obviously too frail to do any work. And why not? Turned out Bo could be counted on to fold under pressure.

On the other hand, maybe Luke had a point about him. There were plenty of times when Bo hadn't lived up to his end of the bargain. Baseball games he'd lost for them by swinging his bat too early, chores he'd done halfway for lack of coordination or just plain laziness, fights where he hadn't been able to hold his own and had called out to Luke for help.

And then there was that one time, maybe the only time he could remember Luke saying his name with that same kind of distress, _I need help_ not exactly spoken aloud, but there in Luke's tone all the same. Years ago, it had been, back when they'd all helped that Jude guy catch Snake Harmon, and there was that overgrown two-year-old with the patch on his eye, arm wrestling Luke almost into the cactus that would have left him with a permanent wound. Luke was calling his name, _do something,_ his voice was saying, and Bo couldn't, was frozen there on the spot. Yeah, the rest of Snake's gang had been between him and Luke, but if the roles had been reversed, Luke would have plowed his way through or vaulted over the bunch of them to get to Bo.

And if things in Ooltewah had been reversed, if Luke had been the one in the prison, would Kalb have broken him? Jesse said that Luke didn't quite understand what he'd done wrong in the whole plan. Maybe that was because _Saint Luke_ didn't have any idea what it was like to fail. Stupid perfect cousin.

* * *

Maybe coming out to Turner Lake had been a mistake. There'd been some fleeting thought of fishing, but there were tons of better places to do that. Hadn't mattered; in the end Luke hadn't brought his pole. Somehow he couldn't imagine just sitting there waiting for a fish to bother getting interested in the miserable little worm hung onto the end of his hook. Not without Bo here for him to shush a good dozen times over the course of the day.

If his goal had been to escape Bo (and it hadn't really, he'd simply followed Jesse's instructions to get away from the farm for the day) Turner Lake was probably the worst choice he could have made. Bo haunted this place, that childhood-skinny body in those hand-me-down trunks that he was constantly tugging up by the drawstring— the ghost of that little blonde kid was right over there, knee deep in the water and not sure he wanted to go any further. Aunt Lavinia was there as well, watching her baby boy from the shore while braiding Daisy's hair, so it wouldn't get in her face while she swam. A skinnier version of Jesse was around, too, just nowhere he could be seen, and that was the point. Anyone following the right branch of the spring that fed this lake would find a still site. Lavinia and the kids played within earshot, and if the law showed up anywhere around the area, they'd be a very loud distraction, giving Jesse time to camouflage the still and dump the evidence. Then their uncle would wander around the long way back out of the woods and show up as if he'd come from the road, just getting around to joining his family for a picnic after a hard day of farming.

If Luke had come here to escape, he'd failed. He couldn't look at this lake without seeing the past, whether it was fifteen years ago or yesterday.

Bo's face yesterday – it had been angry, then frustrated, and then it had taken on a look that Luke hadn't seen on him since before the kid was old enough to grow sideburns. Lost, that was how he'd looked, like his childhood fear had finally come true and he'd been abandoned at the County Fair (which had seemed so big to them all at the time, but now they knew there was no way to lose even something as small and dumb as a chicken in there, much less a clever and clingy little boy like Bo). That look matched better with the freckles Bo had once had, the skinny little chest and the bowl haircut he'd worn back then, before puberty had put all those curls in there. About the only thing that had come close to making Bo look like that since, was the way Diane Bensen had used him for the sake of her stupid carnival. That little experience had left Bo doubting himself for longer than Luke liked to think about.

Staring at the red cast of Turner Lake's water wasn't doing anything for him, but as long as he'd come out here anyway, he might as well see what was left of the old still site. This had been a main one, once upon a time, but now the area was much more heavily traveled so it was not a place that he and Bo had come to in their adult years. The old spring branch was marked by a pair of trees that hadn't changed much, but the undergrowth was a lot denser than Luke remembered. He'd have to stick close to the trickle of water to keep from having to fight his way through vines and saplings.

Luke stuck his hands in his pockets and let the strip of water lead him, old and winding as it was. Maybe half mile upstream, where there was a break in the canopy above and the hazy sun (what had started out looking like a rainy day had aged into the kind of perfect sunshine days that Hazzard was known for) poked through, an extra glimmer caught Luke's eye. Had to bend over to take a better look; a shorter version of himself used to spot such things much more easily. But getting down there was worth it; he'd been right. He reached one hand into the frigid water and scooped out a handful of fool's gold.

Once upon a million years ago, when Jesse had been a full time moonshiner, Lavinia had been alive, and the Duke cousins had all been knee-high to a grasshopper, they used to flip rocks in the spring branch, looking for crawfish. Daisy would squeal if she saw one, and Bo would leap to her rescue, grabbing the beast out of the creek and waving it in Daisy's face. Which made her squeal go up an octave or two, to both boys' delight.

And one hot afternoon, Bo had been the one doing the squealing. For whatever reason, Daisy hadn't been with them that day; maybe she was tired of having tiny clawed things shoved under her nose, or maybe she was doing girl things with Aunt Lavinia, back by the lake. So Luke had been the only one to run to Bo's side, thinking he was hurt or scared, but instead finding him wearing that smile that could charm the cookies right out of the neighbor ladies' ovens.

"_Bo! Don't go screaming like that unless you're hurt!" It was a lesson any kid half Bo's age already knew. _

"_Look, Luke…" And his cousin wasn't paying a lick of attention to what he was being told, of course. "What I found!"_

"_What?" And there Bo went again, distracting him before he could deliver a proper lecture. Still, his kid cousin was just about wiggling with excitement; Luke could figure out what he'd found first then resume the speech after._

"_Gold!" Bo's skinny little arm was reaching up towards Luke's face to show him the precious stones he'd picked up._

_Luke laughed. "Bo. Ain't no one ever told you about fool's gold?"_

"_I don't care what kind of gold it is," Bo said, but his tone was defensive and he was snatching his little hand back from Luke's face. "Gold is gold."_

"_No it ain't Bo, it's just a useless rock. It ain't worth nothing."_

"_Is so! And I ain't no fool, neither." Bo's face was coming to be a bright pink; looked kind of funny next to all that yellow hair._

"_Cousin, if you think that stuff's real gold, then you are the biggest fool ever." It wasn't exactly nice, but Bo was refusing to listen to him. He was making perfect sense, he was older and—_

"_Aunt Lavinia-a-a-a!" Bo ran off hollering, telling on him just by the way he was already whining._

Of course, Luke had been taken aside by their aunt and asked what he'd done to make his poor little cousin so upset. The kid could get him into trouble before you could say 'lickety-split' with those tears. But Luke had been unrepentant. He'd only told the truth, after all, and weren't his aunt and uncle always reminding him that Dukes didn't lie? Besides, it was for the best that Bo didn't go swaggering into Rhuebottom's trying to buy all the candy in the joint with useless rocks.

After that there'd been an endless lecture, something about it wasn't that he'd told Bo the truth, but how he'd done it. A bunch of things that didn't make sense, like how he'd broken Bo's heart (and only a girl could do that -- break a boy's heart -- so his aunt was just not being sensible). It wouldn't do to say it out loud, ever, but a lot of things adults said were not as smart as they should have been. When Lavinia was done with him Luke'd stormed off alone into the woods for awhile. Bo had stuck close to their aunt, still making those sniffling noises.

After they'd gone home, done their chores and had supper, hours after Bo should have been his silly, energetic, smiling self, the kid was still quiet. Luke didn't remember a lot of the details after that. Seemed like he might have thought a little bit harder about some of the things Lavinia had tried to explain to him, might have tried to figure out how fool's gold could break someone's heart. Somewhere in there he'd actually started to feel bad about it.

He couldn't recall, now, how he'd made it up to Bo. Maybe he hadn't; probably not. He'd likely left Bo to get over it on his own.

* * *

Hours, Bo must have been gone for hours. He'd walked the entire property line alone, for no good reason other than it was something to do. Jesse would probably start yelling at him the minute he got in the door, things about having scared years of life off the man, and how Bo still wasn't one hundred percent yet. And that was fine, actually. Bo wasn't one hundred percent and he might not get to being that way for some time now. That thing Luke had taken out of him, whether it was faith in himself or trust in his older cousin, that piece of him might never quite be put right. And no amount of lying around the house, like Jesse probably wanted him to do, was going to make him whole again.

All morning and into the early afternoon, Bo had walked, and now that he was coming back into the farmyard, the pickup was still gone. Luke had taken it, Jesse told him that much. And that was fine; he wasn't really interested in seeing his cousin at all. It was more idle curiosity about whether Luke would bother to come home tonight, and on top of that, if he'd manage to sleep in the same room with Bo.

He stomped up the stairs to the kitchen door, no point in being quiet about it. His uncle would yell at him no matter how he came in, might as well walk like he felt.

"You're just in time for lunch," Daisy greeted him as he swung the door open. Which meant he hadn't been gone too long after all, just long enough for her to complete the inventory she'd promised to do at the Boar's Nest, then get back home to make them lunch. "Go wash up." He was tired of that, too, Daisy telling him to wash his hands, as if he was still a little kid. He took all of a second to consider telling her so, but decided to wrap his arms around her instead.

"I'm glad you're okay, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear.

She giggled. "Of course I am, sugar. With two big old apes like you and Luke around, ain't nothing can touch me. Where is Luke, anyways?"

It was a reasonable enough question. Bo was always the first person everyone asked when they wanted to find Luke. Still it wasn't anything Bo could answer civilly. He settled for, "Dunno," let go of Daisy, and walked away to the bathroom to be a good little boy and wash his hands.

"You have a nice walk?" Jesse greeted from his recliner as Bo passed by him.

A nice walk. _Yes, sir, I had a great time, better than I've ever had driving or hunting or doing just about anything with Luke. Walking until my legs are tired enough to fall off is my idea of fun._

"It was fine."

Somehow he managed to get cleaned up without having to deal with any other annoying questions, then back to the kitchen and setting the table for Daisy in silence. Jesse joined them and they sat for the meal. Bo got his hand slapped for reaching for food before grace. Again.

"Father, we thank you for this food we are about to eat, and for bringing Daisy safely back to us from Sequatchie County. And we ask that you bring this whole family back together in peace and love, as soon as you see fit to do so. Amen." Then his uncle lifted his head to look squarely at Bo.

Which wasn't fair. He wasn't the one who had disappeared, and hadn't even come in the house for a whole day. Bo wasn't the one who had set up his cousin to fail, nor was he doing anything to keep Luke from coming home. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd say if Luke did show up, but he hadn't sent him away.

"Amen," Bo grumbled back at his uncle, then reached for the food again.

Daisy looked from one of them to the other, like she was trying to decide whether to ask what all of that was about. Bo glowered at her in hopes that she'd back down from the notion. Seemed to work; they ate in uneasy quiet for a few minutes.

"Oh!" Daisy said, like she'd finally figured out how to break the silence. As long as whatever she had to say didn't involve Luke, Bo was ready to hear her chatter for a bit. "I meant to tell you! Rosco was at the Boar's Nest today. Says he's glad to hear that you're feeling better, Bo."

Better in a relative sense, he supposed. His head didn't hurt so bad, anyway.

"He also says them Robinsons, remember, the ones who robbed the Boars Nest?" The ones who had started this whole mess that ended with Bo feeling lost in a way that he hadn't since Luke went off to boot camp. Yeah, he had a vague recollection. "They's still on the loose out there. They ain't been back in Hazzard far as he knows, but he swears if they are he's gonna get 'em…"

"A-gij-gij-kyew!" Bo mimicked, and got a frown from Jesse for that. Daisy smiled, though, and that little gesture took the edge off of Bo's gloom.

"Seems like they been in Choctaw lately, stealing cars and pulling robberies. Ain't nobody caught them."

"Wait." This had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. "You mean they're right next door in Choctaw?"

"Well, they was," Daisy corrected. "Recently as yesterday. Don't nobody know where they are today."

"And ain't no one after them?" Okay, so the thing those Robinson boys had done that made Bo so angry, their role in coming between him and Luke, that wasn't a crime. But plenty of what they had done, _were still doing_, was illegal.

Daisy shrugged. "Seems like they ain't got much by way of law there, now. Grady Byrd was the last sheriff they hired, but he ain't no good without no one to tell him what to do, so he left."

"'Sides," Jesse continued for her. "Choctaw ain't what it was. Oh, I know you kids ain't never knowed it any different, but it used to be a lot busier, once. Now it's almost more dust than people."

"There's enough people for them Robinson brothers to be robbing from," Bo reminded him. Besides, it wasn't as dusty as Jesse seemed to think. Cedar City was in Choctaw, and he and Luke had raced at the fairgrounds there more than once, in front of good-sized crowds.

Jesse was looking at him funny. "Don't you be running off to Choctaw, Bo." The old man always knew what he was thinking, and that was more than a little annoying. Couldn't hardly get away with anything that way.

"I wasn't exactly planning to," Bo answered defensively. "I was just going to poke around in Hazzard, see if I couldn't get more information on where they really are, or where they're staying." He was already picking up the sandwich he'd only halfway made it through, and heading for the door.

"Bo!" Daisy was complaining or worrying, whichever.

Jesse shushed her. "You stick close on the CB, then," he said, as some kind of acknowledgement to Bo's unspoken words, _I need to do this_.

"Yes sir."

"And if you find anything, or see them Robinsons…"

"I'll call for help, I promise." So many conversations his whole life had gone this way. Still, Luke was usually by his side when they got to this part, smirking about any thought that they'd get hurt, giving Daisy that _yeah-yeah-yeah, we'll-be-fine_ attitude, just to calm her down.

"Be careful, Bo," Daisy finally settled on.

Bo simply nodded his head as he slipped out the door and bounded down the steps toward the General.


	16. Logic Was Overrated

_Well, this one's winding down, so I wanted to thank everyone for sticking it out with me._

_Don't own them Dukes, but I sure like playing with them! Even if it doesn't earn me any dough..._

* * *

**Chapter 16 – Logic Was Overrated**

It was only the front door to the house he'd lived in for just about his whole life. There was no reason it should be so hard to walk through. In fact, he couldn't say exactly why he hadn't been inside since fighting with Bo yesterday. There was no good explanation for any of it, really. It was a door, a house, his family. So why did going in seem so impossible?

Bo wasn't even home, didn't seem like. Leastwise he knew for sure that the General wasn't out front. And that wasn't the best thing. He didn't have any ideas about how to deal with Bo, or how to make things right between them. But there was no way he'd ever figure it out if he didn't start spending time with his cousin instead of leaving him alone and hoping that Bo would come around to seeing things his way. So he'd come home, maybe halfway planning on his cousin lighting into him, but Bo wasn't here and still, he wasn't sure that he wanted to go inside.

Which was just stubbornness, probably. So he got out of the pickup and walked his way right up to the door, pushed it open and went inside. Worst thing that could happen was Uncle Jesse threatening to tan his hide, and that pretty much happened every day anyway.

"Hey, Sugar," Daisy greeted him from the sink, where she was washing dishes. "You just missed lunch. You want a sandwich? I can make you one."

"Where's Bo?" he asked, not paying any attention to her question.

"That you, Luke?" Uncle Jesse was calling from the living room, before Daisy could give him an answer. Of course it was him. Uncle Jesse could tell the difference between his footsteps and Bo's, not to mention that they had totally different voices. There was no way the old man really needed to ask the question.

"Yes, sir. I'm looking for Bo."

"Come here," Jesse ordered. There never had been any arguing with that tone even when he hadn't done anything wrong, so he went.

The old man looked him over, reminding Luke of how his uncle could look at a pregnant cow and say whether she was ready or not. He was half surprised that Jesse didn't start poking at his stomach to see whether the baby had dropped yet. Whatever his uncle decided, it must have been favorable, because Jesse smiled.

"Good boy," he said, and it didn't make any sense. Luke hadn't made up his mind about anything, other than that he needed to see Bo. That didn't necessarily make him good, it was just normal. He saw Bo every day of his life.

"Jesse," he said, shifting on his feet, arms crossing over his chest like he was hiding a pregnant stomach (or maybe it was his heart) from the old man. He didn't like getting stared at like that; he wasn't a cow and he wasn't expecting and he wasn't sure he was going to make things right with Bo. Just wanted to see him. "Where's Bo?"

"He went out lookin' for the Robinson brothers." Daisy must have followed him into the living room; the words came from in back of him.

"He did what?" And she had to have been right behind him; he almost knocked her over with the way he spun on her. He caught Daisy's elbow to steady her, maybe to say he was sorry, but she hadn't answered his question yet and that had to come first.

"Simmer down, Luke," their uncle was saying. Luke looked back at him; somewhere in there the old man had stood up and was coming up behind him.

"Where did he go?" Luke was asking, none too gently, because there was no amount of being told to calm down that had ever worked when Bo was off on his own and looking for trouble.

"Luke." There was Jesse's firm voice, that tone he used to use when they were learning how to hunt. _Listen to me now_, it said, _before someone gets hurt_. Luke let go of Daisy's arm, realizing a little late that he'd been holding on too hard. "He ain't gone looking for them, exactly. It's more like he's trying to track them."

"Track them?" How was that different from looking for them?

Jesse shook his head, whether at him or Daisy, Luke wasn't sure. "Daisy heard they was up to no good over in Choctaw. Bo was going to try to get more information on where they really are. He promised to check in if'n he learned anything. He ain't going to confront them or nothing, Luke, not without getting us to help him, first."

Deep breaths, Luke took a few. Remembered to be logical. Reached out and patted Daisy's arm until she relaxed, then pulled her into his arms. He shouldn't go scaring her like that, not so soon after she'd been treated roughly in that prison up there in Sequatchie County.

Logical, logical. "Where did he say he was going?" Daisy stepped out of his arms.

"To look for—"

"No, I mean, was he going to town, was he going out to Choctaw, where was he going?" It was a simple enough question.

"He didn't say. He promised to stick close on the CB." Jesse had hold of his arm, turning him away from Daisy to face the old man. "He's a big boy, Luke. He knows to call in if he finds anything. Don't you go treatin' him like he ain't an adult, not now." _Not when he's already hurting_.

Logical, Luke was going to be logical about this. Bo needed to prove something, or thought he did. Needed to show that he could handle himself, maybe, that he could be trusted. Maybe even that he didn't need Luke (and what would Luke do if that turned out to be true?). Bo wouldn't want him running after him to take care of him; Jesse had a point there. Then again, his cousin had bruised ribs, a recent concussion, and _why in hell had Jesse let him go out there alone?_

"I'm going after him," Luke announced. Logic was overrated anyway.

* * *

Bo was in love. That up there was a Firebird, older model, not nearly as rough and tough as the General, but oh so pretty. Bright yellow, like one of them dangerous curves signs, pulled over right on the side of Choctaw Crossing Road. Wouldn't stand up to a good game of bumper tag, but he reckoned that sucker could fly. And this must be his lucky day. Look there, a girl next to the car, waving him down. Who needed Luke (_he did, or he missed his cousin anyway, but there was certainly no reason to be thinking about _that_ right now_) in a world where there were girls needing help with beautiful cars?

The car slid to a stop, funny, he didn't even remember putting on the brakes. Then again, the General was a Duke, and knew a pretty sight when he saw one. If Bo was especially lucky, the girl would look as good as the car, which was why he ran his fingers through his hair before pulling himself out of the window.

"Why, hello there, little lady. You need some help?" he was calling, even as his eyes focused through the sunshine glare of a perfect Hazzard day. The girl stepped toward him and everything changed.

"You!" he heard himself shouting, his hand coming up, finger pointing at her. Mad, he was mad already and he'd only seen her face. "You're—"

_Cherry_, that was the next word he meant to say. But there was more movement over there behind her, someone on the passenger side of that Firebird. Couldn't tell yet whether it was Louise, the other girl from the Boar's Nest, the ones who had been linked to the Robinson brothers after Boss's cash had gone missing. The bright yellow of the car in the afternoon sun made it hard to see well in that direction. Bo took a step, squinting, then heard movement behind him.

Whirling that way, he just about bumped into a guy that he'd never officially met, but recognized all the same. Big, heavy guy, scruffy face, started that Boar's Nest fight. Likely a Robinson.

So he hit the jerk, didn't wait for the other guy to swing first like Luke always did. Also didn't plant his feet first, something Luke had taught him to do all those years ago, which meant his fist only grazed the man's face. Didn't throw his opponent off balance a bit, but Bo stumbled, then ducked under the other guy's meaty fist. This Robinson fellow wasn't exactly quick, but he probably didn't need to be, big as he was. Still, Bo could probably take him if he was smart about it and didn't let the other guy get a good swing at him. So he backed up a step, squared himself off and hit Robinson again, this time in the gut, with hopes of knocking the big man's breath away.

Wound up bringing his hand back quick, shaking it out. For all that Robinson looked heavy, he was hard as rock. And while Bo was worrying over the soreness of his knuckles, Robinson's fist connected with Bo's cheek, and he went down.

Damn it, now he was really mad. Shook his head to clear it, looked at the dirt beneath him like it was somehow to blame for the way Bo was sitting in it now. Pushed against the ground and got his feet under him, eyes up to face the jerk again and… there were two of them. Maybe he'd gotten hit harder than he knew? No, they weren't identical, the two Robinsons, one was bigger than the other.

"Nice car, he's got there," the blob on the left was saying. "Of course, we'll have to paint it a decent color before we can get rid of it."

"Shoot, wouldn't no one take it off our hands, ugly as it is right now."

Yep, there were two of them, both big as houses and dumb as jackasses, and Bo didn't care one bit. There was no way they were going to take his and Luke's car, the thing they'd spent their entire childhoods dreaming up, then their young adulthood building. The car was maybe the only thing that guaranteed him and Luke a good time together, its front seat the only place where Luke had always completely trusted Bo. So it didn't matter how many Robinson brothers there were or how big they turned out to be, he was going to fight as hard as he needed to in order to keep their rotten paws off the General. As he squared himself off again, getting ready to hit the closest Robinson brother, his only regret was that he was way out here at the southern reaches of Hazzard, a place where it wasn't likely that help would show up anytime soon.

* * *

Dang it, it had taken him too long to get here. He'd stopped by town first, talked to Cooter. He'd gotten himself pointed him in this direction and told that he was only about five minutes behind Bo, who had also stopped by the garage. But five minutes was as good as an hour when his cousin was driving the General and Luke was stuck in the old pickup.

Looked like he'd found Bo, though, or at least the General, which was gleaming in the too-bright sunshine maybe half a mile in front of Luke. There was another car there, too, and for the span of a breath or two, Luke was able to hope that maybe his cousin was helping a stranger with a disabled car. But no, there was motion up there, fast and erratic, too disorganized to be something as common as changing a tire. That was a much more violent thing up ahead, and there went a flash of yellow, slamming into the ground.

"This here is Luke Duke calling the Hazzard Sheriff's Department," and when, exactly, had the CB mic found its way into his hand? "Or anyone out there on the Hazzard net. I need help out here on Choctaw Crossing Road, just south of the old filling station." And now he was standing on his brakes, suddenly practically on top of the fight, and he could make out the details that he'd only assumed before. "Looks like Bo done found the Robinson boys."

He didn't remember dropping the handset or opening the door of the truck. Somehow he was outside now, halfway on the pickup's bumper, using it for leverage to take a flying leap at the men that had been working his cousin over. Two on one wasn't fair, not when the two were both bigger than mack trucks. So Luke didn't care which one he landed on in the end, either would be one less for Bo to be trying to fend off.

Luck seemed to be with him; he managed to land full force on one Robinson while clipping the other, because the fools had been standing that close together, probably gloating over the way they were beating on Bo. The force of impact was enough to take down the one, under Luke, while the other stumbled away a few steps. For such a big guy, the Robinson Luke landed on wasn't exactly soft, and the hit knocked his breath away for a second, but he hauled himself back up, bracing for the other man to do the same and come back at him. Looked over at Bo to see him getting up, too, facing off with the slightly bigger Robinson.

So Luke made a quick move, turned to his left and tapped the man Bo was about to fight on the shoulder. Got that Robinson's attention, and socked him across the jaw. Watched over his own shoulder as Bo got the idea and switched partners, too. Seemed a better match up, Luke taking the stronger one, since Bo had already gotten shoved around some (and then there was that head injury, Bo shouldn't be fighting at all with that). But Luke paid for that momentary glance at Bo, when the guy he really should have been watching, the Robinson in front of him (and now Luke recognized him as the one with the stool, felt the hot anger boil up from his belly with that realization) hit him back, fist coming up onto his jaw, and he was on his back, hard, hearing his own grunt as he went down. Better perspective down here, really, made it easier to watch both Bo's fight and his own at the same time. His cousin looked pretty good, actually, still on his feet up there, unlike Luke laying down here in the dirt. So he moved again, got himself into a crouch and went after the other guy's knees, tackling him down. Rolled over a few times and came up on top, just like he wanted. Raised his fist, but it was only a test. If the other man flinched, the fight was over. If he didn't, Luke wouldn't hit him anyway, he'd pull him up to his feet first, make sure the guy had a sporting chance.

But he never had to make the decision which way to go with that. A small body, softer than a man's and nothing like the size of the Robinson apes, suddenly clung to his back. Annoying, mildly distracting. Then again, the distraction more came from the high-pitched voice in his ear.

"You leave him alone, you big old…" Luke wasn't listening to details; he was too busy figuring out that there was a woman on his back, and that she was trying to pull him off of the man underneath him.

"Little lady," he said, standing up with her still clinging just as hard to him, her little feet kicking at his legs. "You need to stay," and he shook her off his back, turned around and picked her up by the waist, ducking away from her tiny fists. "Over here," and he dropped her back off at the side of the road. "Stay now," he reminded her. "Or you might get hurt."

Luke turned back around to see two glorious things: Bo landing a solid punch to his opponent's cheek, hard enough to knock the guy back, and the gleam of red and white lights in the distance. All they had to do now was contain the guys until Rosco got here. Shouldn't be too hard, actually, what with the Robinson Luke had been fighting having regained his feet and coming after Luke. The fool wasn't looking at his surroundings at all, much less considering running from the law. So Luke let himself get hit just under his eye. Didn't feel good, but he could still see well enough to land an equally painful jab to Robinson's gut. And look at that, both of the big guys were down, while he and Bo were still standing.

"Bo," he warned, because Rosco's siren was downright audible now, and the two men at their feet were making movements to get up and run for it. Which wasn't much of a problem, once Bo became aware of it. Wasn't hard for him and Bo to keep them down, with a pinned arm or a knee in the back. The girl was after Luke again, and that was fine, too, made it easier to keep her from running.

"Khee-khee!" Finally. Rosco was there, gun drawn. "I got 'em, I got 'em."

"Yeah, Rosco," Bo was saying through a bloody lip. "You got 'em."

"All right, you Robinsons," Rosco menaced. Might have sounded threatening, too, if you didn't know Rosco. "Now, I got you. Couldn't nobody else stop you, but you're in Hazzard County, now. Khee-kyu." As if this group of trouble-makers hadn't already escaped from Hazzard once. "Turn around now, I'm gonna cuff you and stuff you."

And there was Enos, Luke hadn't seen him arrive. Then again, his cheek was swelling, might account for some of his vision problems. Between the two cops, they managed to get all three suspects into the sheriff's cars, and with Bo's help (oh Luke could see how much his cousin hated to do it, but it was evidence after all) they'd chained the yellow Firebird to the back of Rosco's cruiser. Faster than Luke would have thought possible, he found himself alone with Bo. Who tapped him on the shoulder, made Luke turn and look at him.

"Ow, Bo!" He'd been expecting a handshake, fights with bad guys always ended in a handshake, not a punch in the eye. "Dang it!" Other eye, now he wasn't going to be able to see at all. "What was that for?" He stumbled a little, but stayed on his feet.

"For what you did to me in Sequatchie, for setting me up to fail." Bo's hand was on him, helping him steady himself, then Bo's arms were around him, holding on tight.

"Bo!" Luke considered fighting the hug, maybe he wanted to get his own jab back at his cousin. Then again—

"And this is for always coming after me," Bo said, hot breath in his ear. "Even when I do mess up."


	17. Trust Me

_Author's note: So this'll do it for this story. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it all the way through. _

_I don't own the Dukes and earn nothing for what I post here. I promise to leave the boys alone for awhile, if only because I've got nothing immediately cooking. _

* * *

**Chapter 17 – Trust Me**

"You feel better?" Luke was asking, extricating himself from Bo's arms and wiping at the eye where he'd just been hit.

"A little," Bo admitted, grabbing Luke's wrist and moving his hand away so he could get a better look at that eye. He got shaken off before he could see much, but his cousin's whole face looked like it hurt, all scrunched up as if the sun was too bright.

"We okay now?" Luke asked as he finished wiping his eye, then set to checking Bo over, his face, his wrists, pulling up the blue t-shirt to look at his ribs. Bo could resist him on this, but there was no point. Luke wouldn't rest until he'd gotten a thorough look.

"No," Bo answered and the word hurt his throat on the way out. "Luke, I don't know how to make us okay."

Luke smoothed Bo's shirt back over his ribs, stepped back and studied him for a second, no readable emotion on his face. Anger, even sarcasm, would have been better than this. Flat responses, Bo had never had any idea how to deal with those.

"Sit down, Bo," Luke said, pointing to the hood of the General.

"Luke—" He didn't know what he was trying to do, take back what he'd said or add more words into the mix.

"Sit," Luke repeated, all patience. So he sat. "Tip your head down." Bo's chin was dang near to his chest, letting Luke's fingers walk themselves through his hair towards that old cut up there. "I ain't got no plans, neither, for how to fix things between us."

Well, that was about as scary a thought as he'd ever encountered. Luke didn't have any more of an answer than he did.

"Come on," that gravelly voice came, close to is ear, before Luke stepped back, suddenly no longer touching him anywhere. That was even worse than Luke not having any ideas about how to fix things between them, the not touching. "Let's get you home and cleaned up."

Bo nodded, pushing himself up off the sun warmed hood of the General.

"We'll come back for the pickup later. You drive. I ain't seeing so well," Luke informed him.

"Luke," he started, trying to get closer to his cousin. Maybe he'd really hurt him.

"I'm fine, Bo," Luke answered, ducking away from Bo's outstretched hand. "Just maybe I shouldn't drive is all."

And that was as close as Luke had come to asking him for help in a long, long time. So Bo slid in through the driver's side window of the car and waited until his cousin was fully seated next to him before starting the car and driving away.

* * *

Bo claimed not to have headaches anymore. Normally Luke would reckon that if Bo said it, it was true. These past few days, though, Bo had been acting like he had something to prove. Got up at the crack of dawn, insisting that if Luke was healthy enough for chores, so was he. Wouldn't listen to reason about how a black eye (or two, even) wasn't the same thing as a concussion and bruised ribs.

Jesse suggested, in that tone that informed Luke that going against him would be an idiot's game, that he leave Bo be. Advice followed by more advice, about how his cousin was old enough and smart enough to know his own limits. The words of a man that was hardly ever around when Bo jumped right into trouble with both feet.

Then again, Jesse seemed to be right. Bo hadn't collapsed or even shown signs of stumbling. The bruise on the side of his chest was fading, maybe even faster than the ones on Luke's face. Bo seemed as strong as he ever had been; still couldn't chop wood or sling a bale of hay worth a damn, but that didn't matter. The Duke boys had long ago figured out how to do chores side-by-side, each playing to their strengths and making up for the other's weaknesses. The rhythm of work, _that_ they could still do together as if they'd never gone off to Sequatchie County in the first place. It was just the fun that was missing.

Fishing had been Bo's suggestion. Luke wasn't opposed; then again, Turner Lake wasn't the place he would have chosen to spend the day. Bo didn't seem to harbor anything but good memories of childhood days spent here, but to Luke it was just another reminder of how he'd hurt his cousin, maybe more times than he even knew.

They'd barely settled into a spot and Luke just couldn't be still. It wasn't right that he was the one fidgeting like this.

"Bo." He hadn't exactly planned on saying anything at all. Now he had to come up with some words, because his cousin was just looking at him, waiting for bit of wisdom. "I ain't got nothing brilliant to say." And that wasn't helping either.

"That's okay," Bo answered. "I don't think the fish care." Funny guy, his cousin. Smirking right back at him, too.

"What I mean is, I ain't so smart." Oh, his cousin was probably enjoying this. Luke wouldn't know, somewhere about mid-sentence he'd stopped looking at Bo, and focused on the ripples in the water. Funny how they caught the sun with their movement: the reflection was almost blinding, then it disappeared as the water moved. "I'm a fool." It was like Uncle Jesse was controlling his tongue or something. Maybe his brain, too, he didn't remember thinking the words before they came out of his mouth.

"No you ain't, Luke." Bo didn't know what he was talking about either, sitting there being all skeptical at the idea.

"Yeah, I am. I see all the wrong sides of things." He shook his head; that probably didn't make a lick of sense to Bo. "I never noticed it, or it never mattered before. It was being smart, maybe, watching out for trouble. Sometimes I just… watch too hard, or something. See bad things where you see good."

Bo was quiet over there, probably wondering why it had taken so long for him to figure all this out.

"I don't know, I guess it serves a purpose sometimes, like keeping an eye on Boss." Though in truth they hardly ever had to do that anymore. The man was getting too stupid to bear watching.

Luke shook his head again; that was exactly the kind of thing he was talking about, thinking that way about the Hazzard Commissioner.

"Most of the time it just makes me a jerk."

* * *

It practically hurt his ears, the way Luke sounded saying that. Like he'd lost confidence in himself, forgotten who he was. Like he meant it. Like it was harder than just apologizing for what he'd done, then shaking hands. Bo had no idea how to respond.

Luke had something in his hand, something dripping. Must have put down his pole and reached into the water somewhere when Bo had been staring at the horizon trying to figure out what to say.

"Hold out your hand, Bo." It was so out of place in the middle of this conversation, the memories he had of Luke dropping a squirming salamander onto his palm or sticking an ice cube down his back. He'd squeal with the surprise, Luke would laugh, Bo would get mad and eventually he'd take a swing at his cousin only to get yelled at by Jesse for fighting. Dukes just didn't hit Dukes. "Trust me," Luke was saying in that same hollow sounding voice.

So he put down his pole and turned to face his cousin, wasn't sure he wanted to see him looking as bad off as his tone sounded. Found himself staring into those same brilliant eyes he'd looked at all his life. Hadn't seen them that far open in a while, no smirking lips pulling them into a squint. Luke was asking Bo to trust him, not demanding it.

Bo opened his palm, reached out towards his cousin.

Whatever it was that Luke dumped in was wet, kind of cold and squishy. Not alive, though. Maybe just sand. Bo closed his hand around it, brought it closer to his face, and took a look.

Fool's gold. Luke had asked for his trust to call him a fool? Shoot, he could have done that without making a big presentation out of it. Almost their whole lives Luke had been treating him like an idiot and now he was going to—

"Don't ever let no one, not even me," Bo didn't want to hear this, he was too mad to—"Especially not me, tell you it ain't worth nothing, Bo."

Huh?

"Seems like it's better to hope," that sound was still in Luke's voice, rough, like getting licked by one of those kittens they used to keep in the barn. "When you look in the water, that you've found gold. Smarter. Makes you less likely to… do stupid things that…" Luke wiped his wet hand on his jeans and turned away, facing out over the water again.

Bo wanted to touch him; probably wasn't a smart thought. Jesse could've gotten away with it, but Luke'd liekly just shake Bo off, and none too kindly.

"More fun, maybe," Bo corrected. "Not smarter." He definitely wasn't the smart one or he'd know what to say or do right now. But he didn't, so he slid up a little closer to the edge of the lake and scooped more fool's gold from the bottom of the red water. Dumped it, plus the handful Luke had given him, on the ground between them. It was awfully pretty there, catching the light.

"Easier," Bo amended. Dug out another handful of the stuff and piled it on top of the rest. "To hope it's gold when there's someone else around to make sure you don't walk into the bank and try to pass it off as the real thing."

There was a puff of air. With anyone else it would have turned into a laugh; for Luke it was closer to a snort. "Greedy as Boss is, it might just work." Luke stuck his hand below the surface of the pond, scooped out some gold of his own to add to Bo's pile.

Interesting idea about Boss, he'd have to remember to come back to that later. Maybe when Luke wasn't swallowing so many times in a row or working so hard at not looking at him.

"It's definitely more fun," Bo started again. "When someone else does most of the boring stuff, like figuring out a plan." Their pile of gold was getting pretty impressive now.

"It ain't boring, Bo," Luke informed him. "Not to me." Yeah, well, Luke always did like to think. It was just another thing everyone counted on him for. And after hundreds of times that Luke had gotten them out of messes that no one outside of Hazzard would even understand, they'd all come to look to his cousin before even trying to think of something themselves. As much as Luke liked figuring stuff out, it couldn't be a ton of fun to have to do it all the time.

"I know it ain't, Luke. But you gotta get tired of it, sometimes."

"Maybe," Luke admitted, digging around in the water for more fool's gold.

And that was as far as he dared to push Luke, for now. Any more and his cousin was as like as not to snap at him, or walk away. Bo reached across that gap between them, over the pile of gold, to sling an arm around Luke's shoulders. Good thing he had such long arms, as far away as Luke was right now.

"You want to test that little theory of yours?"

"Which one?" Luke was asking, but he could have been saying anything in the world right now, didn't matter. He was looking at Bo, not the water. Around the look of all those things Luke hadn't quite said, couldn't get out because his voice had been too tight, somewhere in that mess of misery on Luke's face, there was curiosity. Bo would take that, it was something he could work with.

"About whether Boss and Rosco know the difference between this stuff and the real thing." Bo poked a finger into their pile of shiny rocks. Didn't appear all that much like gold when you looked close, but maybe that was the point.

His cousin was smirking. Wasn't a pretty look on him, but it was normal. "We ain't gonna…"

Luke stopped, shook his head. Like changing gears, the smirk turned into a smile. "What you got in mind, Bo?"

It was a start.


End file.
